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THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA 

AND 

REMINISCENCES. 



THE SURVIVING AUTHOR HAS PRE- 
SENTED SIX HUNDRED COPIES OF 
THESE MEMORIALS TO THE VESTRY 
OF ST. MATTHEW'S CHURCH IN UNA- 
DILLA, N. Y., WITH A VIEW TO THEIR 
SALE. THE SUM THUS SECURED IS 
TO BE HELD IN RESERVE AS A FUND, 
THE INCOME FROM WHICH SHALL 
FINALLY BE EXPENDED, WHEN 
NEEDED, IN THE CARE OF THE BUR- 
IAL GROUNDS ADJOINING THAT 
CHURCH IN WHICH, WITH A FEW 
EXCEPTIONS, THESE " PIONEERS OF 
UNADILLA," LIE BURIED 



THE PIONEERS 
OF UNADILLA VILLAGE 

1 £84-- 1 8 4 ( 



O 



FRANCIS WHITING HALSEY, 

AUTHOR OF 
"THE OLD NEW YORK FRONTIER." 



REMINISCENCES 

Of Village Life and of Panama and California 
from i84o to 1850 

BY 

GAIUS LEONARD HALSEY, M. D. 

A PHY/ICIAN IN UNADILLA FOR FIFTY YEARS. 



ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP 



SOLD BY T&E 

VESTRY OF ST. MATTHEWS CHURCH, 

XHSTA-DILLA., N. Y, 
1002 



650 Copies Only Printed and the 
Type Distributed. 



>;. 



p. 

VtoJU 



*V 






:.¥r#5S of (Secrgc & ftailt 
The ttttaritTJa Times. 



TO 

JULIET CARRINGTON HALSEY 

THESE MEMORIALS OF MY NATIVE VILLAGE 
AND EARLY HOME. 



PAGE 



CONTENTS. 

THE PIONEERS OF TJNADILIA 

VILLAGE. 

I. 

BEFORE THE VILLAGE WAS FOUNDED. 
1616-1784. 

The Early Explorers— Settlers Before the Rev- 
olution — Sidney and the Ouleout — Wattles's 
Ferry— Other Susquehanna Villages— The 
Catskill Turnpike — Village Founders— "My 
Native Land" — The Isolation of Unadilla, 



II. 

THE VILLAGE SITE AND THOSE WHO CHOSE IT. 

1784-1800. 

The Coming of Daniel Bissell, Guido L. Bissell, 
Solomon Martin, Gurdon Huntington, 
Aaron Axtell and Others — Sites they Set- 
tled On, - - - - 12 

III. 

TWO FRONTIER MERCHANTS. 
1800. 

Curtis Noble and Isaac Hayes — The opening 
of the Turnpike — Arks on the Susquehanna 
—Col. George H. Noble and Judge Charles 
C. Noble-H. H. Howard and Dr. Willis Ed- 
son, - - - - - 28 



CONTENTS. 

IV. 

EARLY TOWN MEETINGS, ROADS AND HOUSES. 

1787-1810. 



PAGE 



Many towns made from the original Unadilla 
— "The County of Unadilla "—Curiosities 
from town records — Roads before 1800 — 
Houses standing in 1808— Dr. Dwight's visit 
in 1804— Road Districts in 1800, - - 42 



LATER MEN OF MARK. 

1804-1815. 

Stephen Benton and his store— Major C. D. 
Fellows, Judge Sherman Page and Dr. Ad- 
anijah, Daniel, Gilbert and Gardner Cone— 
Capt. Frederick A. Bolles, Salmon G. Cone, 
David Finch, William J. Thompson, Niel 
Robertson, Col. Thomas Heath, A. P. Gray, 
M. B. Jarvis, Josiah Thatcher, John Eells, 
and Lyman Sperry, - 60 



VI. 

A GRIST AND SAWMILL CENTRE. 
1790-1812. 

The builders of the mills— Origin of the Bin- 
nekill— Creeks that fed it— Sampson Crook- 
er's purchase— Joel Bragg— The burning of 
the mills— Gen. Edward S. Bragg, - 74 



CONTENTS. 

VII. 

CHURCHES, BRIDGES AND A SCHOOL. 

1809-1824. 



PAGE 



Early missionaries— Father Nash and St. 
Matthew's— Rev. Norman H. Adams— Pio- 
neers buried in the churchyard— The Pres- 
byterian, Baptist and Methodist churches- 
Freedom Lodge— Capt. Edward Howell— A 
schoolhouse in 1821— The two bridges built, 82 

VIII. 

PIONEERS IN TRIBUTARY NEIGHBORHOODS. 

1784-1823. 

Crookerville settled— Unadilla Centre and 
Rogers Hollow— Families along the old But- 
ternuts road— Sand Hill and Hampshire 
Hollow— Sidney Centre and the old Paper 
Mill region—'* Spencer Street "—Samuel Rog- 
ers, Martin B. Luther, Col. David Hough 
and Perry P. Rogers, - - 94 

IX. 

MAIN AND MLLL STREET MEN. 

1815-1840. 

Two business centres — Ros well Wright's 
store and Stephen Benton's— Arnold B. Wat- 
son—The Unadilla Bank— The old Academy 
—Clark I. Hayes— Col. A. D. Williams and 
Erastus Kingsley— Dr. John Colwell, Henry 
Ogden, L. B. Woodruff, Henry S. Woodruff 
and Seleck H. Fancher, - - 111 



CONTENTS. 

X. 

TWO MEN OF NOTE. 

1828-1835. 

PAGE 

Frederick A. Sands* and his father, Judge 
Obadiah Sands— Frank B. Arnold— Col. 
Samuel North and Thomas G. North, - 124 



XI. 

HOUSES STANDING SEVENTY-THREE YEARS AGO. 

1828. 

Col. North's description of the village at the 
time of his arrival— Men who were living 
here, their families and their occupations, 133 



XII. 

THE UNADILLA HUNTING CLUB AND THE JUBILEE 
OF INDEPENDENCE. 

1820-1826. 

A famous haunt of deer — Men who came to 
hunt them— Dinners at Hunter's Hall- 
Poachers and Pomp's Eddy— A great Fourth 
at Kortright— Political feeling disclosed in 
an oration — Survivors of the Border Wars — 
Joseph Brant, - 146 

* The date of Mr. Sands's birth is incorrectly given on page 
126. It should be Feb. 19, 1813— not 1812. 



CONTENTS. 

XIII. 

VILLAGE LIFE SEVENTY YEARS AGO. 

1830-1833. 



PAGE 



Charming light on business and social life- 
Post Office contests and "up-street and 
down-street "—A celebration of the Fourth 
—Frederick T. Hayes— "The footsteps of 
byegone generations," - - 159 



REMINISCENCES. 

PREFACE, - - - - 177 

I. 

KORTRIGHT AND UNADILLA. 

1819-1840. 

Birthplace and family history— Dr. Gaius Hal- 
sey of Kortright— The Catskill Turnpike— 
The first stove— To Delhi for general train- 
ing— Erastus Root and the Rev. William 
McAulev— Reading medicine— To Scranton 
or Unadilla ?— Arrival at Kingsley's Hotel, 179 

II. 

UNADILLA SIXTY YEARS AGO. 
1840. 

Houses then standing— Commodore Woolsey 
—The Norman H. Adams house— The lower 
hotel— Martin Brook road, - - 193 



CONTENTS. 

III. 

OLD INHABITANTS AND EARLY PRACTICE. 

1840-1847. 

PAGE 

Others who survived with the author from 
1840— "Capt. Horn"— Practical Jokes at 
Williams's Store— The Carmichaels— A Year's 
Business— Harry Wolcott— A dead man 
brought to life— Frolics with a three-year- 
old colt— Removal to Connecticut, - 206 



IV. 

PANAMA AND CALIFORNIA. 
1849. 

Sailing away from New York— In the Chagres 
River— First view of the Pacific— A long 
stay in Panama— Admiral Porter and C. P. 
Huntington— The voyage up the Pacific 
Coast— Arrival in the Golden Gate, - 222 



V. 

SAN FRANCISCO AND SACRAMENTO. 

1849. 

A city of cloth tents— Gambling and curi- 
osities in prices— A perilous trip to Sacra- 
mento—Two board shanties make a town 
—Sutter's Fort — Samuel Brannon— Chances 
in real estate, ... 245 

xii 



CONTENTS. 

VI. 

IN THE GOLD DIGGINGS. 
1849. 



PAGE 



Mining on the American River— A hole that 
lasted a season— Taking turns as cook- 
Profitable practice of medicine— Other min- 
ing parties— Two cities grow up in a night, 256 

VII. 

THE RETURN TRIP TO PANAMA. 

1849. 

The finding of a lost bag of gold— Desperately 
ill— Abandoned by natives on the Isthmus- 
Saved by Capt. "Dick" Norton, - 270 

VIII. 

JAMAICA AND THE RETURN TO UNADILLA. 

1849-1850. 
Health restored in the Atlantic— A look around 
Kingston— Settle in Unadilla again— Ori- 
gin of the word Unadilla— Men in the Civil 
War— Charles C. Siver— Service in the War 
as surgeon after Antietam, - 276 

IX. 

MY CALIFORNIA DIARY. 

February 12, 1849— November 11, 1849. 

A record made in pencil and still legible— In- 
teresting notes of the experience— Last ill- 
ness and death, - - - 289 

INDEX, _ - - - 307 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Frontispiece 

The Susquehanna at Unadilla Village, 



FACING 
PAGE 



Map of the Original Village Lots in the 

Wallace Patent, - - - 12 

The Benton and Fellows Store, - - 60 

St. Matthew's Church, - - 86 

First Consecrated in 1814, enlarged in 1845 
and again in 1852. 

The Second Bridge on the Site of Wattles's 

Ferry, 92 

Built in 181 z, taken down in 1893. 

Portrait of Joseph Brant, - - - - 156 

Born about 1742, died in \&ox- 

Portrait of Dr. Gaius L. Halsey, - - 17S 

Born in 18 19, died in 1891. 

The Dr. Gurdon Huntington House, the 

oldest in the village, - 198 

The Original Unadilla, the "place of Meet- 
ing," 2S0 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA 
VILLAGE. 

I784--I840. 



BEFORE THE VILLAGE 
WAS FOUNDED. 

1616-1784. 

White men appear to have been in the upper 
Susquehanna valley in 1616, or about one hundred 
and sixty years before the Revolution. They came 
as explorers and then as fur traders. After them 
in the next century came missionaries to the 
Indians. Finally in 1769 arrived surveyors, own- 
ers of land patents and actual settlers. When the 
first Indian raids were made upon the valley in 
1777 during the Revolution, thriving farm com- 
munities, composed mainly of Scotch-Irish, with a 
few Dutch and Palatine Germans, had been estab- 
lished at points from Otsego Lake down to the 
mouth of the Unadilla River. 

One of these existed at the mouth of the Ouleout 
Creek and was called Albout ; another was in the 
old paper mill region ; another across the Susque- 
hanna in what is now Sidney village and still an- 
other along the lower waters of the Unadilla 
River. The three settlements at the confluence of 
the Susquehanna and Unadilla rivers were some- 
times known collectively as Unadilla, although the 
3 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

one on the site of Sidney was often designated sep- 
arately as the Johnston settlement before the war 
and as Susquehanna Flats afterwards. While it is 
not unlikely that some of the Unadilla village lands 
had been occupied in that period, actual proof of 
this is wanting. 

When the war closed, and settlers began to re- 
turn to the valley, seven years had passed since 
those early pioneers were driven out. The country 
was again a wilderness in some respects more for- 
bidding than when the settlers first entered it. 
Only the blackened logs of burned houses remained 
on many farms. Lands that had produced wheat 
and corn through several seasons in happier times 
were now overgrown with weeds, brush and 
briars. 

No part of New York state, not even the Mo- 
hawk valley, had been more constantly the scene 
of depredations ; none had been so often used as a 
route of travel for small armies of Indians and 
Tories on the one hand and of American patriot 
soldiers on the other ; none had now become a land 
of such utter desolation.* 

When the Revolution closed the earliest settlers 

* Of events in this valley before and during the Revolution, the author 
has written in detail in the volume entitled "The Old New York Frontier: 
Its Wars with Indians and Tories, its Missionary Schools, Pioneers and 
Land Titles, 1616-1800," published in the spring of 1901 by Charles Scnb- 
ner's Sons. Many authorities for the information contained in the present 
volume will be found in the Bibliography appended to "The Old New York 
Frontier." Others are indicated here in the text. 

It is proper to explain that the contents of this volume originally formed 
a part of the manuscript of "The Old New York Frontier." In seeking a 
publisher for that work, with a view to its general sale through the book 



SIDNEY AND THE OULEOIT. 

to return came in 1784 and many were families 
whom the war had driven out. Others were men 
who had entered the valley as soldiers, or who had 
heard of its rich lands through others who were 
soldiers. Many went to the old paper mill region. 
Among these were the Johnstons who had former- 
ly lived in Sidney, and, after spending a year on 
Unadilla lands, returned to Sidney again. The 
McMasters and William Hanna also settled in the 
paper mill region. Others went to the valley of 
the Unadilla River and still others to the Ouleout. 
All these men took up lands that had been occu- 
pied before the Revolution. 

Of those pioneers we have, in several cases, full 
and authentic records. One who settled on the 
Ouleout was Sluman Wattles, who came from Leb- 
anon, Connecticut, in 1784? and took up lands be- 
low Franklin village where he was to remain a 
potent factor in the life of all that region for the re- 
mainder of his life. Another was Timothy Beach 
who settled at the mouth of the Ouleout. An- 
other, in the same region, was James Hughston 
and still another Nathaniel Wattles, who opened a 
hotel near the Sidney side of the present upper vil- 
lage bridge. 

Before a bridge was built Mr. Wattles main- 
tained a ferry at that point to which his name was 
given. Wattles's Feny for many } r ears was the 

trade, the author decided to reserve these village chapters for publication in 
their present form, their interest being local rather than general. 

5 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

point of destination for scores of pioneers who 
each season crossed the wilderness from the Hud- 
son to the Susquehanna and here entered boats in 
which they and their household possessions were 
transported to points further south and west. 

Another pioneer, and the ancestor of a large fam- 
ily that still survives in the Ouleout country, was 
Isaac Hodges who arrived in 1789 from Florida, 
Montgomery county, where he must have known 
the Johnstons and others who came to this valley 
from that place. The family had been settled in 
Florida for some years, Abraham Hodges before 
the war being one of the well known citizens of 
that part of the Mohawk valley. Isaac Hodges's 
son Hezekiah in 1790 settled on the farm where 
William T. Hodges spent his life. It is recorded of 
Hezekiah that he planted the first apple orchard 
known in that neighborhood. It became the par- 
ent orchard of many others. 

These men had all been a few years in the coun- 
try before others came to plant the settlement that 
grew into Unadilla village. Some of the founders 
of the village arrived from the same towns in Con- 
necticut whence had come the men of the Ouleout. 
Here in the stream called Martin Brook they found 
a water power which would drive a saw mill, then 
a pressing need of the country, and which soon af- 
terwards drove also a grist mill. Here one of them 
opened a hotel, another a store, and a third be- 
came a physician — facts which laid the foundations 
6 



THE CATSkILL TURNPIKE. 

of a small community in which ere long were to be 
centered many vital interests of a large frontier 
territory. 

Finally in 1800 an old primitive road, running 
from Catskill to Wattles's Ferry, was improved 
into a turnpike. It became the model road in all 
this part of the state, and was destined to remain 
for more than a quarter of a century the main 
highway of trade, travel and settlement. Contem- 
porary with the opening of this road, was the com- 
ing of Curtis Noble and Isaac Hayes, two young 
merchants, whose enterprise and success gave the 
final weight of influence to causes already oper- 
ating for the founding on this soil of the village 
which, for half a century, was to control a larger 
sum of interests than any other within a radius of 
perhaps twenty miles. 

Indeed the origin and early growth of nearly all 
the upper Susquehanna villages came from similar 
causes. Usually a store and a saw and grist mill 
determined the site. Mills were established near 
the mouths of streams tributary to the main 
waterway. Hotels and stores naturally followed. 
Centers were thus established, around which other 
enterprises and homes soon were gathered. With 
Cooperstown, Oneonta, Otego, Unadilla, Sidney 
and Bainbridge the genesis is practically the same. 

As time went on, other circumstances, added to 
what lumbering and agriculture had done, led to 
newer progress, such as the Catskill turnpike that 
7 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

aided Unadilla, the Esopus one that helped Bain- 
bridge, the Charlotte one that made for the welfare 
of Oneonta, or those later circumstances, which, 
before the era of railroads set in, made Oneonta 
and Bainbridge centers of the stage business for 
the whole valley. All these villages, save Coopers- 
town and Bainbridge, were founded on lands in 
the Wallace patent. 

The sketches which follow relate to one alone of 
these villages ; but Unadilla might serve as a type 
of them all. It is a village with whose annals the 
circumstances of birth and an eighteen years' resi- 
dence on its soil have helped to make the author 
familiar. Many of its leading citizens of a past 
generation he knew in boyhood. Its highways, 
hills and streams remain the most familiar and 
among the fairest he has ever known. 

The lives of the men who founded and built up 
this village may be assumed to possess interest to 
those who were born in that village, or who have 
made it their home. No wise man can be indiffer- 
ent to the founders of any place bearing such rela- 
tions to himself, any more than he can be indiffer- 
ent to the founders of his native land in a larger 
sense. In a very forceful way such men have 
helped to make him what he is, and what he must 
forever remain. They are 

11 dead but scept'red sovrans 
Who still rule our spirits from their urns." 

Out of the very soil on which one is reared ap- 

8 



VILLAGE FOUNDERS. 

pear to spring forces fixing deep marks on one's 
nature. One is not alone a native of his birthplace, 
but in some considerable degree a product. No 
fact is more familiar in biographies, whether of 
great or small lives, and for example in the life of 
Dickens. The fondness of Dickens for ships and 
salt water was life long because Dickens, like his 
own Copperfield, had been "born within sound of 
the sea and its eternal nevermore." 

This influence springs not from climate alto- 
gether ; nor from soil or landscape. More than to 
any of these influences perhaps it is due to inhabi- 
tants, older and wiser than he, by whom his ten- 
dencies were directed, if not actually shaped. Such 
as these are the unacknowledged teachers of us all. 
As of the founders of states and of cities, so of 
those who found villages and small settlements: 
they definitely give to communities their character. 
They still exert their sway long after they have 
ceased to speak and toil. 

The primary interest in these sketches now is, 
and must continue to be, local. And yet, in a 
sense, those quiet annals have wider value. Small 
as this village has remained, the charm of its site 
and the beauty of its streets have impressed all 
visitors. The place, moreover, stands otherwise 
apart, and stands with some eminence, as an ex- 
ample of a New York village at its best. 

For three quarters of a century, Unadilla re- 
mained thoroughly isolated from the great world 
9 



THE PIONEERS OF IAADILLA. 

beyond its borders. Until the nineteenth century- 
had two-thirds passed away, it had neither rail- 
road, nor canal, nor any near communication with 
one. At Catskill, or at points in the Mohawk 
valley, for a long series of years, its people could 
first reach a larger world, and then the undertak- 
ing involved a journey on wheels, in some cases of 
ninety miles, through a rough country. Even in 
Civil War times, a day's journey by stage was still 
necessary in order to reach a railway and learn the 
war news ; while the war had some years passed 
away, when a railway first came to its own doors. 

How that event gradually changed this com- 
munity those know best who have known the vil- 
lage both before and since the invasion. Before it 
occurred, growth and character proceeded almost 
wholly from local forces, which were mainly strong 
and otherwise beneficent. Whatever was good 
and productive, proceeded out of the place itself— 
out of the virtues that lay in its own people, who 
were very largely of New England stock. 

Here in many families dwelt a quality in refine- 
ment, the things which, in these matters, mean cul- 
ture — fineness of feeling, elevation of sentiment, a 
sense of the obligations which worldly independ- 
ence confers and a good breeding — which isolation 
could not deny to the place, and which isolation 
probably did much to bestow upon it. 

Boys who knew that culture and were blessed 
by its influence, boys who are now men and have 
10 



ISOLATION OF UNADILLA. 

travelled far, may well reflect, as more than one of 
them has done, that in vain have they sought to 
find that culture developed in finer or sweeter state 
elsewhere. 

To New England the obligation for that is un- 
questionably large; but this cannot explain all 
things. When we say that in this inland New 
York village thrived for almost four score years a 
bit of New England transplanted in the west, we 
must add to the statement that it thrived in an 
isolation so complete that, what was best in New 
England culture, here came to florescence in full 
degree. 

It is a common enough experience to find men 
and women showing a partial fondness for their 
early homes. Out of this isolation of Unadilla has 
sprung, I think, a very partial fondness for the 
place among those who knew it in the early forties, 
fifties and sixties. What Webster, on a famous oc- 
casion said of Dartmouth college, they might say 
of this village: it is a small place, but there are 
those who love it. 

The men who led in this work of village founda- 
tion are little known to the present generation. 
Many of them lie buried in St. Matthew's church- 
yard, and headstones mark their graves, familiar 
places to all who frequent that enclosure. But few 
are the visitors who know anything of the story of 
those strong and valiant souls. 



11 



II. 



THE VILLAGE SITE AND THOSE 
WHO CHOSE IT. 

1784--1800. 

The site of Unadilla village comprises nine lots 
of the Wallace or, as it would be better to call it, 
the Banyar Patent, since its real owner was 
neither Alexander nor Hugh Wallace, but Goulds- 
borough Banyar. They are lots 92 to 100, inclus- 
ive. Each runs in a northeasterly direction on 
lines generally parallel. The lots are of somewhat 
varying widths with lengths of perhaps ten times 
the widths. Besides Mr. Banyar the non-resident 
early owners from whom the settlers obtained 
their titles included eminent citizens of Albany 
County — John Livingston, the Lansings and the 
Van Vechtens — who seem to have acquired their 
holdings from Mr. Banyar. At first leases on the 
redemption plan were given. Several pioneers had 
long been here before they acquired actual titles, 
although others purchased soon after coming ; but 
it was not until 1811 that the last village lot 
passed from an alien owner to an actual settler. 

The records of those early transactions are not 
complete. Searches made for the author leave sev- 
12 




UNAMLLA A *-&* 



«^Wfci-~ 









AARON AXTELL. 

eral gaps to be filled. It was not a universal cus- 
tom in those times to record deeds. A buyer often 
accepted the old deeds from the man from whom 
he purchased. Even in cases where deeds were 
eventually recorded several years might have 
elapsed after the purchase. In the period from 
1772 until 1791, during which Unadilla was part 
of Tryon, or Montgomery County, no records 
exist of any sales by Mr. Banyar or of any sales to 
or by the Livingstons, Lansings or Van Vechtens, 
searches for the same having been made for the 
author in vain at Fonda. In Cooperstown the 
author has fared better. Here titles to almost any 
lot can be traced back to the formation of the 
county in 1791. From these records alone has it 
been possible to prepare the appended account of 
first sales to settlers.* 

First to purchase outright, so far as the records 
show, was Aaron Axtell, the pioneer blacksmith of 
the village, who was here before 1794. In August 
1795, he secured a part of lot 93 for £110. He 
made the purchase from Mr. Banyar. Lot 93 lies 
in the western end of the village. Mr. Axtell's 
house stood on the site of the future Owens or Sal- 
mon G. Cone residence just beyond the railroad 
crossing, which some twenty odd years ago was 
burned. In 1810, Uriah Hanford had become the 
owner of this lot. 

* The information on which this is based was supplied in i8q2 by Mr. 
Lee B. Cruttenden, County Clerk of Otsego, who took much trouble in 
making the investigations that were necessary. 

13 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

Mr. Axtell was of Welsh origin, and another of 
the name who came to Unadilla was Moses Axtell. 
Moses Axtell had lived in Boston before the Revo- 
lution, where he was one of the famous party who 
disguised themselves as Indians and threw the tea 
into Boston harbor,— the act by which, in the 
trouble with the Mother Country, the gauntlet 
was definitely thrown down by the Colonists. 
Moses Axtell afterwards fought in the battle of 
Lexington and at Bunker Hill. 

Next as a purchaser came Solomon Martin, who 
in June 1796 secured lot 96, embracing perhaps 
150 acres. He paid for it the sum of £141 5s. 
The sale was made by the Van Vechtens. Like all 
these lots it ran back to the hills for a distance of 
about a mile from the river bank. 

The third purchase was made by Daniel Bissell. 
In August 1796 he obtained from Mr. Banyar lots 
99 and 100, comprising nearly 400 acres, for 
which he paid £345. These lots extended from the 
extreme eastern end of the village down to about 
where St. Matthew's church stands. Mr. Bissell 
sold a part of lot 100 in 1801, to his kinsman 
Guido L. Bissell for $250. Another part of the 
same lot he sold to Solomon Martin in the follow- 
ing year for $450. 

Gurdon Huntington was the next purchaser. He 
did not acquire title, however, until 1800, which 
was about ten j r ears after he came into the coun- 
try. He then purchased from John Livingston a 
14 



STEPHEN BENTON. 

part of lot 98 for $352. Probably Dr. Huntington 
had already erected on this lot, the yellow house 
that still stands in the rear of the building long 
used as the post office. He seems to have built the 
house while occupying the land under a lease with 
the privilege of purchase. 

Aaron Axtell in 1803 purchased a further part of 
lot 93 from William Fitch and Sarah, his wife. He 
paid $1400 for it, which would indicate that im- 
provements had been made by the former owner. 
Mr. Fitch had a house in the village before 1803. 
As Mr. Axtell bought his first part of lot 93 from 
Mr. Banyar, Mr. Fitch's part had, of course, orig- 
inally been purchased from the same owner. 

Stephen Benton, in 1804, became the owner of 
lot 95. He purchased it for $1095 from Peter 
Betts who then lived in Bainbridge and whose wife 
was Eliza Fitch, a sister of Amasa Fitch, an early 
settler on village land. Peter Betts owned other 
lands in the Wallace patent below the village. He, 
with William Fitch and Jonathan Fitch, had se- 
cured titles to land within the village limits some- 
what earlier than the settlers already named ; but 
the Cooperstown records give no clue to the date 
of their purchases which indicates that he made 
the purchase before 1791. There were Fitches in 
Lebanon, Connecticut, and these men perhaps 
came into the country with the Wattles families in 
or soon after 1784, which would make them the 
first settlers who took up village lands. 
15 



THE PIONEERS OE INADILLA. 

Jonathan Fitch in 1805 sold to Jacob Hayes the 
land he lived on in lot 94. For a part of that lot 
Mr. Hayes paid $800. Here again improvements 
obviously were included in the purchase price. Mr. 
Fitch is known to have had a house in the village 
at that time. 

Next among the purchasers came Solomon Mar- 
tin a second time. He bought lot 97 from Mr. 
Banyar in 1807, paying £153 14s. On this lot 
stood General Martin's house and store. He at 
this time was the largest land owner in the village. 
After his death in 1816, the estate was said to be 
"land poor." 

The records now proceed to the purchase made 
by Daniel and Gilbert Cone, in 1811. This was lot 
92 which lay beyond the Axtell purchase. The 
Cones bought of the Lansings and paid $563.39 
for the tract. Three years later they sold one acre 
of it to Niel Robertson for $400, which must have 
included improvements. From Mr. Banyar in 1813 
the Cones bought another lot for $501.25. This 
was lot 108, but it was outside village limits. 

Daniel Bissell who in some respects is the most 
interesting of these pioneers was a native of Leb- 
anon where he was born in 1748. He married in 
that place Sarah Wattles and was approaching 
forty years of age when, about 1792, and perhaps 
earlier, he came to Wattles's Ferry. In Lebanon 
he had already become a man of varied and useful 
activities. He possessed a considerable tract of 
16 



DANIEL BISSELL. 

land there and papers now owned by Harriet Bis- 
sell Sumner show that he had had many transac- 
tions with Sluman Wattles. A paper characteris- 
tic of the period, containing an "account of Benja- 
min Bissell's estate that Daniel Bissell took", 
names pistols valued at £2, a greatcoat valued at 
12s., leather breeches at 5s. and one gun at £1, 
12s., 6d. Another paper signed " Jonathan Trum- 
bull, Captain-General", who was the original 
"Brother Jonathan", his home being in Lebanon, 
is dated in 1773 and excuses Daniel Bissell from 
military service owing to " a lameness of the arm 
caused by fracture and a pain in the chest caused 
by a sprain." 

Still another paper dated in March 1792 gives a 
list of articles delivered to Daniel Bissell from the 
estate of Mr. Fitch. It includes one large kettle, 
valued at 8s., one meal chest at 3 l-2s., one small 
feather bed at 30s., one pair of saddle bags at 6s., 
one small bedstead 10s., and one copy of Gibbs's 
"Architecture", 24s. Some of these articles no 
doubt found their way to the new settlement. Mr. 
Bissell had a family of nine children, three or four 
of whom had reached their twentieth year. He 
brought with him the large sum of $7,000 in 
specie, which completely filled a good sized basket. 

One of the recorded facts in Mr. Bissell's life is 
that he kept the first hotel. A license issued to 
him, though not the earliest in the town by five or 
more years, still exists with the seal attached. It 

2 17 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

is signed by Solomon Martin, in whose hand the 
whole paper is written, and by Peter Schremling 
and Gurdon Huntington. By virtue of law these 
gentlemen, Commissioners of Excise for the town 
of Unadilla, say they "do hereby permit Daniel 
Bissell to retail strong and spirituous liquors ac- 
cording as it is in said law made and provided, 
from the date hereof until the first Tuesday in May 
next after this date." The license is dated Septem- 
ber 9, 1799. 

Mr. Bissell's relations with other settlers are 
shown in several letters. One from Noble and 
Hayes, of which he was the bearer, dated in 1806, 
is addressed to Bogardus and DuBois of Catskill, 
and informed them that the Unadilla merchants 
sent by Mr. Bissell three barrels of wheat, with 
other articles which were to be sold "if you can 
and credit us the avails." Another from Dr. 
Huntington was addressed to Packard and Conant 
of Albany. Dr. Huntington sent by Mr. Bissell a 
few rags and said " I expect you will give four dol- 
lars for rags, or more, and if they do not come to 
the amount of the paper [ the rags were to be ex- 
changed for writing paper ] I will be I suppose in 
Albany in about two weeks and will settle for the 
same." The date of this is November 1808, when 
Dr. Huntington was a Member of the Assembly. 

About the same time came a relative of Daniel 
Bissell, though not a near one, Guido L. Bissell, 
Mrs. Sumner's ancestor. He was born in 1769 
18 



GlIDO L. BISSELL. 

and was the father of that other Daniel Bissell 
whom many men and women can still remember. 
He was also the father of Hannah Bissell who be- 
came the wife of John Veley. In 1796, as Mr. Bis- 
sell's account book records, "John Barsley began 
to work for me", and in the following spring 
"Sevenworth began to work for me." In this an- 
cient volume, another entry under date of Franklin, 
March 23rd, 1798, is this: "I promise to Guido 
Bissell 15 shillings on demand, being for value re- 
ceived, John Pooler", and still another, "Mr. 
Guido Bissell and I have settled and find a balance 
of 2 pounds due said Bissell on account, James 
Hughston." Mr. Bissell for sometime was engaged 
in trade. His book has many entries of sales of 
"jane", velvet, cloth, etc., as well as charges for 
work done by himself and men whom he employed. 
He did some of the work in building Wright's store 
in 1815, and when St. Matthew's church was built 
made note of "work on the church five days by 
Mr. Beadle." 

A numerous and influential family in Connecticut 
had been the Bissells. John Bissell, a pioneer of 
Windsor, and believed to be the ancestor of them 
all, was the first white man who ventured across 
the Connecticut River from Windsor, where he 
built a house and began the East Windsor settle- 
ment. For forty -four years his descendants, Aaron 
Bissell and Aaron Bissell, Jr., filled the office of 
town clerk. In Windsor in the last century was a 
19 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

Daniel Bissell and a Daniel Bissell, Jr. The latter 
performed secret service for Washington, that won 
for him a badge of merit. Members of this family 
have been prominent in various walks of life. One 
of them was a Protestant Episcopal bishop. 

Solomon Martin came to Unadilla some years 
before 1790. In 1792 he already had a store here. 
He was a native of Woodbury, Connecticut, one of 
the oldest towns in that state outside the Connec- 
ticut River valley, and was a son of another Solo- 
mon Martin, descended from one of the first set- 
tlers. The family was English and one of them, 
Captain John Martin, went around the world with 
Drake. They were entitled to bear arms and had 
for their motto "Sure and Steadfast." Solomon 
was born June 15, 1762. His name is given by 
Cothran among natives of Woodbury who served 
in the Revolution, although he was only a boy of 
thirteen when the war began. His title of general 
—a militia title, I believe— belongs to a late period 
in his life. In 1792 he was a captain and in 1806 
a colonel. He served in the war of 1812. 

His store in Unadilla was the first set up. Its 
site was on Main just west of Martin Brook Street. 
Here also he lived, the house and store having been 
built together. At a late date he appears to have 
been in partnership with Gurdon Huntington. 
Many years afterwards there stood near the pres- 
ent White store block a building called the Dr. 
Huntington store. It was afterwards moved to the 
20 



SOLOMON MARTIN. 

site of the present L. L. Woodruff residence and 
then conveyed to the street that fronts on the river 
where it still stands adjoining the churchyard 
grounds. Solomon Martin had a distillery as 
early as 1803, when Guido L. Bissell charged him 
"to work at trough at stillhouse 18 shillings," "to 
work in the still house 6 shillings", and again "to 
work on the still." 

Solomon Martin and Sluman Wattles had close 
business relations. Mr. Wattles sold him boards 
"delivered to your store" in 1792, and in the same 
year charged George Johnson 3 pounds, 17 shillings 
for "goods taken at Captain Martin's store." In 
1794 he charged Martin 6 shillings as "fees for li- 
cense", and the same year Roger Wattles with "an 
order on Solomon Martin for three quarts of rum 
for 7 shillings." When Martin was in the Legisla- 
ture in 1806, Sluman Wattles sold him a yoke of oxen 
" which he agrees to allow me as much for as he can 
sell them to the McAlpins for and answer the same 
to Lansing at Albany towards the Mill place which 
I bought of him ( Lansing ) between now and the 
last of August next." Martin appears to have 
made his journey to the State Capital in a convey- 
ance drawn by these oxen. 

Solomon Martin's wife was Susan Scott of Cats- 
kill, whom he married in 1796. In 1816 he died, 
and Mrs. Martin with her four sons and her un- 
married sister continued to occupy the home in 
Unadilla for many years. He was elected Super- 
21 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

visor in 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801 and 1802. He 
was Sheriff of Otsego County from 1802 to 1806, 
and was twice a Member of Assembly. His busi- 
ness relations were large. Among plaintiffs in 
suits before Sluman Wattles in and about the year 
1794, Martin often appears, some twenty suits 
and confessions of judgment in his behalf being en- 
tered. 

During his term as Sheriff, Martin became associ- 
ated with a murder case in a way that gave his 
name considerable notoriety. Stephen Arnold of 
Burlington had so severely whipped a girl six years 
old that she died of her injuries. Arnold was tried, 
convicted and sentenced to be hanged. On the day 
appointed for the execution, thousands of people 
assembled to witness it in an open field on the 
banks of the river in Cooperstown. An address 
was made by a clergyman, the prisoner spoke afew 
words, Sheriff Martin adjusted the rope, and then, 
while the assemblage was breathlessly waiting for 
the final scene, Martin produced a letter from Gov- 
ernor Lewis granting a respite. It appeared that 
this letter had reached Martin early in the morn- 
ing and it was now past noon. His excuse for his 
conduct was that he and a few others whom he 
had consulted thought it would be improper to 
make the letter public except on the scaffold. 

Solomon Martin's permanent memorial in this 
village is the stream that bears his name. It was 
formerly divided into two streams running through 
22 



MARTIN BROOK. 

village lands, and then coming together, thus form- 
ing an island. When the owners of land on and 
near this island desired to erect buildings thej 
thought it proper that the brook should be con- 
fined to one channel, and accordingly attempted so 
to make it. 

More than half a century has passed since that 
step was taken, but the stream in high water time 
is still true to its old time habit : the brook pushes 
out to the westward and asserts dominion over its 
old time territory. All the efforts of two genera- 
tions to prevent this again and again have failed. 
Across this stream on Main street originally stood 
a wooden bridge. At the sides horses could be 
driven down for water. A stone arched bridge 
erected a great many years ago, admirably took the 
place of this primitive structure and so remained 
until 1893, a striking monument of the care with 
which it was built. 

Solomon Martin for many years had a sawmill 
on this brook. It stood a short distance above 
the tannery site and here for many years the road 
came to an end. The building of this sawmill goes 
back of the year 1796. Solomon Martin, his store 
and his sawmill were long since gone. They are all 
forgotten to this generation. A dark stone slab 
marks his burial place in St. Matthew's churchyard. 
Meanwhile the unruly brook remains forever to 
strengthen recollections of his name. 

Further up this stream other sawmills were af- 
23 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADiLLA. 

terwards built. What was the dwelling house ad- 
joining these mills still does duty there as a home 
on a different site, and here in their old age long 
lived Lewis, or "Luke", and Edward Carmichael. 
Beyond that site Martin Brook now possesses a 
newer and more lasting memorial of individual en- 
terprise. Athwart the stream have been erected 
imposing dams of stone serving reservoirs and 
standing as firm and permanent as the hills that 
form their abutments. Solomon Martin had been 
nearly forty years in his grave when was born the 
citizen of Unadilla who in that secluded ravine was 
to erect these enduring and beneficent structures,— 
Samuel S. North. 

Gurdon Huntington, whose home for many years 
was in the historic building that still stands at the 
corner of Main and Martin Brook Streets, came to 
Unadilla before 1794, and here he lived until 1830. 
He was a native of Franklin, Connecticut, which 
lies within a few hours' walk of Lebanon, Daniel 
Bissell's home. His father was Deacon Barnabus 
Huntington, and he belonged to the sixth genera- 
tion in descent from Simon Huntington, a noted 
early emigrant from England who sailed for the new 
world in 1633 with his wife and children, and on 
the voyage over died and was buried at sea. From 
his surviving sons a very distinguished family of 
descendants were to be raised up in many parts of 
this country— Samuel who was governor of Con- 
necticut and a signer of the Declaration of Inde- 
24 



GURDON HUNTINGTON. 

pendence, Samuel who was governor of Ohio, 
Daniel the artist, and Collis P., the railroad mag- 
nate, whose home in early life was in the Susque- 
hanna Valley at Oneonta. 

Gurdon Huntington was born on July 3rd, 1768. 
He was educated by his father's pastor, the Rev. 
Dr. Nott. One of his schoolmates was that Eli- 
phalet Nott who rose to much eminence as presi- 
dent of Union College. The boy read medicine in 
Connecticut and then came to Unadilla. In 1798 
he married Esther, the only daughter of Benjamin 
Martin of Woodbury, Connecticut. Benjamin Mar- 
tin was Solomon Martin's eldest brother. 

Dr. Huntington " became a successful and de- 
servedly popular physician" in Unadilla. His 
practice is known to have extended to places dis- 
tant forty or fifty miles from home, and one may 
well believe the statement that "a more welcome 
visitor never entered those scattered homes." In 
this laborious field he made journeys by day and 
night and often wended "his solitary way along al- 
most untrodden paths", forded unbridged streams 
and yet was a "cheerful and happy man", as well 
as a "skillful and prosperous physician." He is 
said to have accumulated in his time "a handsome 
property." He was a man of genial manners and 
* by nature companionable. 

Dr. Huntington was elected supervisor of Una- 
dilla in 1803 and again in 1809 and 1811. For 
seven years he was town clerk. He served four 
25 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

terms in the Legislature— in 1805, 1806, 1807 and 
1808. In 1813 he removed to Cairo, Greene 
County, where he died in 1847 at the age of 
seventy-nine. 

In this early pioneer history, other names besides 
these are found— Adam Rifenbark, Seth Abel, Capt. 
Uriah Hanford, Jacob Boult, Abel Case and Jonas 
Sliter. Each was here before the eighteenth cen- 
tury closed. Capt. Hanford came before 1796 and 
was a freeholder in 1809. He died here more than 
thirty years afterwards. He was the father of 
Theodore Hanford. Jonas Sliter dates as far back 
as 1795 and probably several years further. He 
seems to have belonged to the family which settled 
in the old paper mill region before the Revolu- 
tion. Perhaps he came back as soon as the war 
closed. Seth Abel was living in the town before 
1798 and long served as tax collector and pathmas- 
ter. Abel Case was probably here before the cen- 
tury closed. In 1809 he was a freeholder and in 
1810 a commissioner of highways. He owned land 
that joined Solomon Martin's and was one of the 
first vestrymen of St. Matthew's Church. Guido 
L. Bissell worked on his wagon house and roofed 
over his barn in 1806. Jacob Boult was living in 
the village in 1800 "near the bridge" and was still 
a resident in 1837. Giles Sisson was living on the 
river road above the village before 1808. Still an- 
other name is William Wheeler, to whom in 1797 
Guido L. Bissell sold "15 lights of sash for 7 and 
26 



OTHER FIRST SETTLERS. 

6 pence", "290 feet of timber for 10 shillings and 
1300 shingles for 1 pound." 

The life story of these pioneers is really a his- 
tory of this settlement in its formative period. 
Their activities widely differed, and so did their im- 
portance. But all were among the first pioneers 
and they all had a share in laying the foundations. 



27 



III. 

TWO FRONTIER MERCHANTS. 
1800. 

While Solomon Martin, Gurdon Huntington 
and Guido L. Bissell had sold goods in Unadilla be- 
fore the century closed, the first merchants, in any 
large and permanent sense, were Curtis Noble and 
Isaac Hayes. Among settlers who came after the 
century had just ended, special distinction belongs 
to both men. They were contemporary in their 
coming with the building of the turnpike, and both 
were young, Mr. Noble being twenty-five and Mr. 
Hayes twenty-four. Here they remained in part- 
nership until Mr. Noble died more than a genera- 
tion afterwards. Their varied activities extended 
far along the valley and to the north and south of 
it. They were typical frontier merchants, a class 
of whom New York State in those times had many 
examples— men of youthful energ} r , largeness of 
aims, honorable purposes, capacfty for toil and fine 
mercantile instincts. 

Curtis Noble was descended from Thomas Noble, 

an Englishman who reached Boston as early as 

1653. Descendants of Thomas Noble make up a 

genealogical record filling a book of more than 600 

28 



CURTIS NOBLE. 

pages. He settled in Westfield, Massachusetts, 
and there died in 1704. His eldest son, John, was 
the first white man who settled in New Milford, 
Connecticut, and there in 1750 was born John's 
son Elnathan, and in 1754 his son Jesse. 

Elnathan Noble in 1794 bought for $750 a farm 
of 100 acres in Otsego County on the Butternut 
Creek in what is now New Lisbon. When he 
moved to the farm in April of that year, there was 
a log house on it ten feet by twelve, with an elm 
bark roof and a chimney of sticks and clay. In a 
cart covered with tow cloth and drawn by two 
yoke of oxen he arrived early in May with Johanna 
Bostwick, his wife, and their one daughter and 
four sons, finding the land heavily timbered, the 
settlers few, and these chiefly Dutch or German. 

Here Elnathan Noble lived until his death in 
1824, his funeral being conducted by the Rev. Dan- 
iel Nash, known better as " Father" Nash, with 
whom he had long co-operated in support of the 
Episcopal faith. Jesse had followed him to New 
Lisbon, and Jesse's son Thomas found in Unadilla 
a wife in Eliza Ann Beach, daughter of Abijah H. 
Beach, by whom he had eight sons, Whitney B., 
George N., Edward B., Thomas H., Carrington T., 
John Henry and Clark. Jesse's daughter Hetty be- 
came the wife of the Rev. Russell Wheeler, the first 
rector of St. Matthew's church in Unadilla. 

Elnathan Noble's eldest son Curtis did not go to 
New Lisbon with his father. He had already en- 
29 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

tered upon a mercantile life at New Milford in the 
store of Elijah Boardman, where also had been em- 
ployed his future partner, Isaac Hayes, and there 
Curtis Noble remained until 1800 when he and Mr. 
Hayes formed their partnership and set out for 
Unadilla. In that year Mr. Noble married Mr. 
Hayes's sister, Anna, who survived him until 1865 
when she died at eighty-four. 

Mr. Hayes was born in 1776. His father was 
Thomas Hayes of Ilminster, Somersetshire, Eng- 
land. Mr. Hayes in 1798 was sent by Mr. Board- 
man to the Western Reserve of Connecticut, now a 
part of Ohio, under contract to clear up a tract of 
land, sow grain and otherwise prepare the way for 
settlers. These lands were in the present town- 
ship of Medina. 

Early in 1800 Mr. Hayes had returned to New 
Milford and entered into his agreement with Curtis 
Noble to conduct a business "as merchants or 
shopkeepers in the State of New York at such place 
as may by them be thought most proper under the 
name and firm of Noble and Hayes for a term of 
time not less than ten years." They contributed 
each at the beginning one thousand dollars. Mr. 
Hayes was soon afterwards to increase his amount, 
while Mr. Noble had the privilege of doing so. 
Each was to "devote his whole time and attention 
to the business, use and benefit of the said com- 
pany."* 

* The original articles of agreement are still in the possession of descend- 
ants of Mr. Hayes. 

30 



ISAAC HAYES. 

Instead of ten years this partnership continued for 
nearly forty r . Formal settlement was finally made 
in 1841 with George H. Noble and Charles C. 
Noble as executors of their father's estate. 

These Unadilla pioneers came by way of Catskill, 
the turnpike being then in process of construction. 
On reaching the river they stopped at the Wattles's 
Ferry hotel and soon concluded that the lands 
across the stream offered the most promising site 
they had seen for their enterprise. Here was the 
terminus of the turnpike over which their goods 
could be brought from Catskill and from here 
down the Susquehanna could be sent in boats the 
produce of the county which they expected to ac- 
quire in exchange for goods. 

Their first stock of goods arrived on a Saturdaj-, 
when they were living in the house afterwards 
called the Priest house, a close copy of the Gurdon 
Huntington house. It occupied the site of the 
present Horace Eells residence. In one of the 
rooms of this dwelling the goods were opened and 
on the following Monday Mr. Hayes on horseback 
made a tour of the Ouleout country and the upper 
Susquehanna, announcing to all the inhabitants 
that a new store had been opened. Solomon Mar- 
tin, who had a rival store, predicted disaster for 
the new firm. But Mr. Hayes's tour brought a 
crowd of customers at once and a large trade was 
soon secured. 

In the following year the firm was able to send a 
31 



THE PIONEERS OF UlSiADILLA. 

large quantity of local produce to Catskill and Bal- 
timore. Pearl and pot ashes, pork, bacon, wheat, 
cattle, dried apples and eventually whiskey became 
staple articles of export. An old account book 
records that in 1808 Mr. Noble, on one occasion, 
sold 30 barrels of pot ashes "for cash in York", 
and in 1809, " 588 pounds of rags." Shipments to 
Catskill were made by well known residents of the 
town— John Pooler, John Carley, Aaron Axtell, 
James Hughston and others. The business eventu- 
ally grew to large proportions. Wheat, rye and 
corn were grown in vast quantities and everyone 
was overburdened with the stock on hand. In a 
single week the firm was known to ship to Catskill 
3,000 bushels of wheat, which meant 90 sleigh- 
loads. These circumstances forced the firm into 
distilling rye and corn into whiskey, and for this 
purpose the stone building, afterwards used as a 
tannery was erected. 

Between Unadilla and Baltimore regular ark 
loads of produce made journeys down the river. 
As described to the author by the late Clark I. 
Hayes, these arks were from 20 to 30 feet long and 
from 15 to 20 feet wide, the depth being from 3 to 
4 feet. Boats similar to them were in general use 
on inland waters at that period. On the Mohawk 
the favorite boat was called the Schenectady boat, 
which was "abroad and shallow scow some 50 
feet in length steered by a sweep oar of 40 feet and 
pushed upstream by man power." On these boats 
32 



UNADILLA A RIVER PORT. 

when the river was high 10 tons of freight could be 
carried. 

The ark proper was the invention of a Pennsyl- 
vania farmer named Kryder living on the Juniata. 
In 1792, when flour and lumber were dear, he first 
resorted to this kind of boat in order to reach Bal- 
timore, and thus realized an excellent profit. The 
ark afterwards came into very general use all 
along the upper as well as the lower Susquehanna. 
In favorable water 80 miles a day could be tra- 
versed. Mr. Kryder's first ark carried 300 barrels 
of flour. Later ones were large enough to bear the 
weight of 500 barrels. It was by means of these 
boats that the vast grain product of Central and 
Western New York was for many years transported 
to southern markets. 

The arks of Noble and Hayes were loaded at a 
cut in the river bank that may still be seen oppo- 
site their old store. Having been hauled near the 
bank, planks were thrown out to the arks from the 
shore. In seasons when the water was at its most 
favorable stage,— which was usually falling high 
water that enabled a boat to be kept in the centre 
of the stream,— loading was done at other points 
in order to start several arks at one time. All the 
products of the country went down the river in 
these arks— at least all for which a market existed 
at the end of the journey. They were loaded suf- 
ficiently well to draw from 20 to 24 inches of 
water. From three to five of them were usually 
3 33 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

coupled together in line and placed in charge of an 
experienced pilot who understood the course and 
currents of the stream. Men with long oars steered 
them at each end of the line under directions from 
the pilot. 

Lumber intended for Baltimore went in rafts 
which were put together at places along the river 
where some quiet eddy could be found near a saw- 
mill. One of the best spots of this kind near Una- 
dilla was the eddy below the Condensery which 
formerly covered a large territory that has since 
been filled in by the action of the water, leaving 
scarcely a trace of the water area that formerly ex- 
isted. After making their sales in Baltimore, Mr. 
Hayes or Mr. Noble went on to New York to pur- 
chase goods, shipping them by way of the turn- 
pike. 

Refuse grain from the Noble and Hayes distillery 
was fed to cattle and hogs. It was a common 
thing to slaughter from 200 to 300 hogs in the fall, 
and to feed half that number of cattle through the 
winter. In the time of Jefferson's Embargo the firm 
met with heavy losses. Mr. Hayes used to tell 
how a supply of crockery that had cost $1200 just 
before the Embargo was raised was afterwards 
worth only $112. 

When the Embargo was imposed however, it not 

only affected the stock of merchants favorably but 

the farmer's produce unfavorably. Grist mills had 

been busy with heavy crops all through the autumn 

34 



MR. HAYES'S HOUSE. 

of 1807 in anticipation of high prices, due to the 
foreign demand; but when the ports were closed, 
the demand ceased and farmers often found them- 
selves in possession of a staple article for which 
they could not get the cost of the labor put into it 
—the sowing, reaping and grinding. The loss in 
New England to each family because of this meas- 
ure was reckoned in 1808 to be about $100. 
Thousands of men were ruined by it, and notices of 
sheriff's sales covered tavern doors and guide posts 
at forked roads. Men in those days could be sent 
to jail for debt and thus in New York City during 
a period of less than a year 1300 persons were 
imprisoned. That city has been described as 
looking "like a town ravished by pestilence." 
Streets were deserted and grass grew on the 
wharves. 

Isaac Hayes in 1804 built the house in which his 
son so long lived— the house still occupied by de- 
scendants of his. It was for many years regarded 
as the finest residence on the road between Catskill 
and Ithaca. This may readily be believed, for in 
1804 the common dwelling house was a log hut, 
while the three "yellow houses", then standing in 
the village, one of which the Huntington house 
still survives, were fine modern residences.* Mr. 
Hayes's house for that time was indeed a palatial 
country mansion. A remarkable feature of it was 

• The third of these houses occupied the site of the Owens, or Salmon G. 
Cone residence, destroyed by fire some twenty years ago. 

35 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

the height of the rooms, as may still be seen ; they 
are as high as rooms in many dwellings of our day. 
Remarkable also was the design of the house— the 
elevation, the mantels, above all the circular stair- 
way. In the existence here of that edifice in those 
early days lay a sign of the culture which someone 
has said "corrects the theory of success." 

On the island opposite this house formerly ex- 
isted a race-course. It does not appear to have 
been in use long, however, — perhaps not for more 
than two seasons. A temporary foot bridge was 
erected across the stream, made of planks resting 
upon benches having legs long enough to keep the 
planks above water. This bridge was wide enough 
for two persons to pass. After the races were over 
it was removed. Horses and carriages reached the 
island by the ford way. 

Mr. Hayes's activities in this community, apart 
from his mercantile business, were wide and varied. 
He was postmaster for many years, supervisor 
in 1805, and for seven other years, and was elected 
to the Legislature in 1811 and in five other years. 
He had an important share in founding St. Mat- 
thew's Church. He had come from the home of 
Congregationalism and did not embrace the Epis- 
copal faith until some years after he came to Una- 
dilla, when he joined with others in promoting the 
services held by "Father" Nash. He was a vestry- 
man, warden and treasurer of the Church for many 
years and was senior warden at the time of his 
36 



THE HAYES FAMILY. 

death, which occurred in 1857 at the age of eighty 
years and ten months. 

Isaac Hayes's wife was Sarah, daughter of Ben- 
jamin S. Mygatt, of New Milford. To the same 
family belonged the late Henry R. Mygatt of Ox- 
ford and his sister, Mrs. Frederick A. Sands, of 
Unadilla. The two families of Noble and Hayes, as 
already shown, were related by marriage, Mrs. 
Noble being Mr. Hayes's sister. No family ac- 
counts were kept at the store ; each took what it 
needed. Eventually the two family homes con- 
tained twenty children. One of these children sur- 
vived elsewhere until 1892 ; when he died in Ben- 
nington, Vermont, at the age of eighty-three,— Joel 
M. Hayes. 

Thomas Hayes of Ilminster had seven children 
besides Isaac. They were Abraham, Polly, Jacob, 
Hannah, Daniel C. and Thomas. Abraham's 
daughter Anna married Dr. David Walker, who 
succeeded Dr. Huntington as the occupant of the 
"yellow house", and whose brother Francis built 
the house across the street that was long the home 
of the late Henrj- S. Woodruff. Dr. Walker lived in 
Unadilla as late as 1835, and finally died in the West. 
A daughter of Jacob Hayes, Julia Ann, became the 
wife of Col. A. D. Williams, for many years a mer- 
chant in Unadilla, of whom more will be said here- 
after. 

Isaac Hayes's daughter Sarah Ann, who was 
born in 1815, became the wife of the Rev. Louis 
37 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

LeGrand Noble, a cousin of Curtis Noble, whose 
eareer as a clergyman began in the historic St. 
Peter's Church in Albany and included successive 
charges in North Carolina, Catskill, Chicago, 
Glens Falls and Hudson City, New Jersey. He be- 
came in 1872 professor of English literature in St. 
Stephen's college at Annandale. He was a friend 
of Thomas Cole, the artist, became one of his ex- 
ecutors, edited his papers, and wrote his life. 

Like Mr. Hayes, Curtis Noble was active in many 
affairs apart from his own business. He was sup- 
ervisor in 1825 and 1829 and held the office of 
town clerk for a longer period than any other citi- 
zen of the village has ever done— from 1805 to 
1824. A story that has survived to this day is 
that he once brought down with his gun from the 
top of a pine tree a Susquehanna shad. This was 
strictly true. He had shot a hawk and with the 
hawk fell a shad which the hawk had taken from 
the river. 

Curtis Noble's eldest son was Col. George H. 
Noble, whose wife was Sherman Page's daughter, 
Elizabeth Butler. He was a man of extensive 
knowledge and deeply impressed those who knew 
him. For some time he was engaged in business in 
the brick store at Main and Depot Streets. The 
stone part of the Arnold residence was built by 
him. Colonel Noble at one time edited a paper 
called the Unadilla News. In 1840, Edward H. 
Graves had started a paper called the Susquehanna 
38 



MRS. CHARLES C. NOBLE. 

News, which Col. Noble purchased of him in the fol- 
lowing year and changed the name. After a brief 
career it was followed by the Weekly Courier, of 
which Edson S. Jennings was editor.* Colonel 
Noble died in 1847 at the age of forty-two. 

Curtis Noble's second son was Charles Curtis, a 
graduate of Union College who became a lawyer at 
Owego, but after his father's death returned to 
Unadilla. He was County Judge in 1843, and a 
Member of Assembly in 1849. He died in 1851 at 
the age of forty-five, while on a visit to Owego, 
where he hoped a change of air might improve his 
health. By way of Deposit, the body was brought 
back to Unadilla by rail and from Bainbridge a 
funeral train of thirty carriages conveyed it to Una- 
dilla. His stone law office, near the house where 
his widow long afterwards lived, stands as a fa- 
miliar relic of his career. 

His widow survived until July 13, 1890. She was 
a large-minded, gifted woman. Few like her have 
dwelt so long in this valley. She was born in Owego 
in October 1808 and was married in 1834, becom- 
ing the mother of six children, three of whom grew 
to maturity and one to the age of fifteen. All these 

* A third paper called the Unadilla Herald was started a few years later 
with William H. Hawley as editor. It lived about a year. Nearly ten 
years afterwards, or in 1855, the Unadilla Times made its appearance with 
a Scotchman from Schoharie for its editor. He was succeeded by E. S. 
Watson, and Mr. Watson, in 1857, D X George B. Fellows, who made a 
longer stay, conductine the paper until the close of the Civil War, when 
followed in their turn George E. Beadle, Gilbert A. Dodge, A. J. Barlow, 
William H. Parsons, E. S. Little, Robert F. Sullivan, Benjamin P, Ripley 
and George D, Raitt. 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

children soon passed away in the steps of their 
father. With the finest resignation, Mrs. Noble 
bore these recurring afflictions which left her for 
more than a quarter of a century a solitary figure 
in the home where her young life had been spent. 
One who knew her long, when writing of her early 
life, described her as "the centre of a large social 
circle and the brightest intellectual force within it." 
It was, indeed, women like her who could make one 
realize what Steele meant when he said of Lady 
Elizabeth Hastings that "to love her was a liberal 
education." 

Curtis Noble's daughter Harriet Amelia, the 
widow of Henry H. Howard, was long the sole 
survivor of Mr. Noble's family in the village. Mr. 
Howard was a citizen of the village for nearly 
sixty-five years : he came in 1827 and died in 1890. 
He was a native of Madison County, his father 
being Samuel Howard a native of Bridgewater, 
Massachusetts. He married Harriet Noble in 
1837, their only surviving child being Dr. Frederick 
S. Howard of New York. Men and women can 
now recall the Fourth of July celebrations of their 
childhood to which Mr. Howard usually contri- 
buted the balloons made by him on his own prem- 
ises. He was a man of bright and original mind, 
capable of varied and forceful wit, and had consid- 
erable knowledge of human nature. 

Curtis Noble had a brother named Elnathan who 
went from New Lisbon to Michigan in 1S33, 
40 



DR. WILLIS EDSON. 

where he gave to a town in Livingston County, 
the name of Unadilla,* and a sister named Sally 
who in 1808 was married to Dr. Willis Edson. Dr. 
Edson was a native of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 
He read medicine with the famous Dr. White of 
Cherry Valley and in 1815 came to Unadilla, where 
he died in 1823 at the age of forty, leaving a son 
Willis who was long in business here. 

A daughter of Dr. Edson was the wife of Col. 
Robert Hughston who led a regiment to the front 
in the Civil War. Col. Hughston was descended 
from the Ouleout pioneer and spent many years on 
the farm where a bridge crosses that stream to the 
lands that were taken up after the Revolution by 
Timothy Beach. Dr. Edson's son Darwin was the 
father of William D. Edson, the author's friend and 
schoolmate, who practiced law' in Unadilla for 
some years and afterwards joined other men from 
the village in finding a new home in the "zenith 
city of the unsalted seas." In that distant town 
Mr. Edson is now City Judge. 

* Another town named after Unadilla lies in Otoe County, Nebraska. It 
was laid out by men who formerly lived in the older town, the first house 
being erected there in 1872. 



41 



IV. 



EARLY TOWN MEETINGS, ROADS 
AND HOUSES. 

1787-1810. 

Otsego County was formerly part of Montgom- 
ery. Montgomery had before been called Try on 
County after the Colonial Governor, William 
Try on. Governor Try on became a Tory during 
the Revolution and hence the change in name. At 
the close of the war Montgomery embraced lands 
enough to have formed a small state— the lands 
that now comprise the counties of Montgomery, 
Otsego, Herkimer, Fulton, Hamilton, St. Law- 
rence, Lewis, Oswego, Jefferson and parts of Dela- 
ware, Oneida and Schoharie. 

Otsego was formed from Montgomery in 1791, 
but the need for a division of the large territory 
comprising Montgomery had been felt soon after 
it was set off from Albany County in 1772 under 
the name of Tryon. The Legislative Council in 
1775 set apart a certain tract called the Old Eng- 
land district, in which were included settlements 
on the Unadilla River and Butternut Creek : under 
this name the tract was known during the Revolu- 
tion. After the war, it was reorganized under the 
42 



TOWNS MADE FROM UNADILLA. 

same name with new officers and so continued un- 
til Otsego was set off in 1791 and then the name 
disappeared. 

Otsego first comprised only two towns— the 
towns called Otsego and Cherry Valley, but in 
1792 the town of Otsego was divided and the 
name Unadilla was given to its southern half. In 
that town of Unadilla were then embraced lands 
that have since been made to constitute seven 
Otsego County towns, and which by the census of 
1890 had a population of 20,024, divided as fol- 
lows: Butternuts, 2,723 ; Morris, 1,920; Milford, 
2,051; Laurens, 1,659; Oneonta, 8,018; Otego, 
1,840; Unadilla, 2,723; Oneonta Village,* being 
not only the largest community in Otsego County, 
but the largest between Albany and Binghamton. 
When Oneonta was first taken off from Unadilla, 
it was named Otego from the creek that still flows 
across its territory— the Wauteghe Creek of earlier 
times. 

The division of the Unadilla territory began in 
1796 when Butternuts ( with lands afterwards 
taken from Butternuts and called Morris ), Oneon- 
ta, (including lands that afterwards were taken 
from Oneonta to make Laurens ), and Milford were 
erected as separate towns. The present Otego 
lands remained a part of Unadilla until 1822. This 
division found its justification in the growth of 

* Originally called Milfordville and changed to Oneonta in I830. Early 
land papers spell the word Onahrichton, Richard Smith wrote it Onoyar- 
enton, 

43 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

population which had been surprisingly large be- 
fore the 18th centnry closed. As early as 1794, 
Otsego County was able to cast 1,487 votes for 
Member of Congress, which would mean a popula- 
tion of probably more than 10,000. The town of 
Otsego alone in 1795 had 2,160 male inhabitants 
above the age of sixteen. Six years later the entire 
county contained 21,343 souls. Spafford in 1813, 
which was before Otego was taken off, credited the 
town of Unadilla with a population of 1,426, and 
the taxable property was valued at $141,896. 
Unadilla had five distilleries and fourteen school- 
houses. The land was "held in fee." 

A study of the records of this town of Unadilla, 
as contained in a large pigskin-bound volume, now 
in the office of the Town Clerk, sheds interesting 
light on many aspects of frontier life. It contains 
the record of the town meeting held in 1796, which 
met in the house of Daniel Bissell, on the site of the 
present residence of Samuel D. Bacon, which for so 
many }'ears was the home of Dr. Evander Odell. 
This meeting was presided over by Nathaniel Wat- 
tles of Wattles's Ferry. David Baits was elected 
supervisor and Gurdon Huntington town clerk. It 
was voted that the next town meeting should also 
be held in Daniel Bissell's house, but later meetings 
held their sessions "in the schoolhouse near Daniel 
Bissell's." In 1798 the house of Solomon Martin 
was used ; in several other years the schoolhouse. 

Suggestions were often made that meetings be 
44 



TOWN LAWS. 

held outside the village, because of the long dis- 
tances which many persons had traveled for the 
earlier meetings. In 1817, and some other years, 
voters assembled at the house of Capt. Elisha S. 
Saunders, several miles up the river. Motions 
were afterwards made that meetings take place on 
the Unadilla river, in the paper mill country, and 
in Unadilla Centre, but these were lost. 

At the meeting in 1797 it was voted that "the 
town will beat the expense of sending after Esquire 
Scramling, or some other magistrate, to qualify 
the town officers", and in 1797 that "the town 
will allow the Town Clerk five dollars for his ser- 
vices for the last year." The same sum was voted 
in 1803 to Solomon Martin and David Baits for 
"services done heretofore as supervisors of this 
town." Lawful fences were declared to be those 
"four feet nine inches high", with the "poles or 
rails not more than six inches asunder." Earmarks 
were registered as follows: Abner Griffith, "slots 
in the right ear"; Daniel Bissell, "a square crop 
on ear, with a half penny on the under side of the 
left ear"; John Sisson, "a hole through the right 
ear and a half penny the underside of the left"; 
William Fitch, " a halfpenny under side each ear." 

It was voted that hogs " with yokes eight inches 
long above the neck and four inches below be al- 
lowed to run as free commoners", and that "the 
town will give for each wolf killed within the limits 
thereof forty shillings." Wolves seem to have been 
45 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

plentiful until a rather late period. Dr. Odell in 
1872 said men were then living who could remem- 
ber the site of the railroad station in the village as 
"a tangled thicket from which the cry of the pan- 
ther and howl of the wolf were frequently heard." 

In 1796 the number of persons assessed in Una- 
dilla was ninety-nine ; the total real and personal 
property was set down at £2,275, and the tax at 
£52. A year later the persons assessed numbered 
106; the property was $12,045 in value and the 
taxes were $370. In 1808 a memorandum de- 
clared the number of "Quakers returned in this 
town, 1, viz: Stephen Wilber, tax $4." 

Signs of the discontent, due to an inconveniently 
large town, which eventually led to taking off 
Huntsville (Otego) from Unadilla were seen very 
early. One was the holding of the town meeting 
at the house of Captain Saunders ; another was a 
proposal in 1817 to divide Unadilla by adding to 
Chenango County "all that part lying in Upton's 
Patent", which was the valley of the Unadilla 
River, and coming east to the "west end of the vil- 
lage of Unadilla." This proposal emanated from 
"the western portion of the town." But the town 
meeting of 1817 resolved to "use all due diligence 
to prevent such division." Nine-tenths of the peo- 
ple were declared to be opposed to it, its strongest 
advocates lying outside the town, and their motives 
being "to divide and distract the citizens of our 
territory." 

46 



•THE COUNTY OF UNADILLA." 

Some twenty -five years after Otsego County was 
formed a project was started for setting off a new 
county comprising parts of Otsego, Chenango and 
Delaware, and to be called the County of Unadilla, 
with the village of Unadilla as the county seat. In 
1818, the sum of $250 was voted to defray the ex- 
penses of a committee while attending the Legisla- 
ture "for the purpose of obtaining a new county." 
Other papers on this subject may be found in the 
State archives down to a period so late as 1856. 

In 1802 it was resolved that the town should 
have two pounds. One was to stand "not to ex- 
ceed half a mile from Hubbell's Mills, so-called, and 
the other within half a mile of Yates's Ferry, so- 
called." The two were to be built of "logs rolled 
up in form or manner of a house." William Potter 
was Poor Master in 1793, and in October he 

charged the town with " a winding sheet for F 

twelve shillings", and "for F 's attendance and 

doctrine £3, 12s. 3d." In March 1794, he received 
as license money $10 each from Isaac Gates, Na- 
than Hill and Barrett Overheyser, and in 1795 the 
same from nine other persons. 

First among enterprises having in view the gen- 
eral good came roads which at the start were mere 
clearings through the forests. Above all things the 
scattered settlements in the upper valley needed 
communication with each other. The road by 
which they reached the outer world ran from Wat- 
tles's Ferry to Catskill,— a road much older in its 
47 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

first state than the turnpike and one which the 
turnpike finally supplanted. The original road 
had been opened about fifteen years before the 
turnpike was established. A wheeled vehicle as 
early as 1787 is known to have made a journey 
over its entire length. 

By the summer of 178& this first road was in 
passable condition. The State now took its im- 
provement in charge. G. Gelston made a survey of 
it in August 1790, and during the next year Slu- 
man Wattles did some work on it, his cousin, Na- 
thaniel, having a contract with the State for the 
work. In 1792, Solomon Martin drove a yoke of 
oxen over it to Catskill and back, taking fifteen 
days, which meant an average of six miles a day. 
The road was only twenty-five feet wide. In the 
same year a regular weekly mail route was estab- 
lished over it from the Hudson to the Susquehanna. 

A State road that dates from 1790, led from 
Unadilla by the Susquehanna and Charlotte to 
Schoharie Flats. In that year Sluman Wattles re- 
ported to State officials that it was worth £12 per 
mile "to clear out and make this road." It be- 
came an important highway to the settlers. 

To about the same period belongs the building of 
Main Street in Unadilla village, which was ex- 
tended westward to the Unadilla River. The sur- 
vey was made by Nathaniel Lock of Westchester 
County. The original map made by him may still 
be seen in Albany. In December 1791, a certificate, 
48 



MAIN STREET OPENED. 

signed by Solomon Martin, David Baits, Israel 
Smith, Elijah Heyden, Nathaniel Lock and other 
"inhabitants of the Ouleout and Unadilla", de- 
clared that this road had been completed agreeable 
to Lock's map by Benjamin Hovey* and John 
Massereau. The signers added that "said road 
had been amended so that loaded ox teams or 
carts can pass and repass the whole distance with 
ease." Originally the road in Unadilla village ran 
closer to the river. It was several times altered 
and once at the instance of Solomon Martin, to 
whom credit is given for the obtuse angle formed 
near the Post Office. 

Solomon Martin and others certified in 1791 
that they had completed a road from the Unadilla 
to the Chenango River. A road also had been 
opened down the Susquehanna, where were many 
settlements, and at Windsor in 1791 one had been 
started across the hills to Cookoze ( Deposit ) on 
the Delaware "to serve", says Lincklaen, "to 
transport commodities to the Philadelphia mar- 
ket." By 1794, a road ran all the way over to 
Carr's Creek from the Ouleout, beginning at a 
point near the stone house on the W. J. Hughston 
farm. It had been begun somewhat earlier. In 
that year a bridge was constructed across Carr's 
Creek, Sluman Wattles charging 8 shillings for one 
day's work on it. 

For the records of later road building we must 

'General Benjamin Hovey who settled in Oxford in 1790 and named the 
place after his native town in Massachusetts. 

* 49 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

turn to the town archives instead of the State. In 
1796, there was made "a return of a highway, 
laid out through the town of Unadilla, beginning 
at Abner Griffith's on the river and running north 
to the Sand Hill Creek where the patent line 
crosses ; then crossing the creek ; thence northerly 
through lot number 119 until it runs twenty-five 
rods on the lot of Elisha Lathrop", from whence it 
proceeded to the north line of the town. These 
records show how early the Sand Hill and Hamp- 
shire Hollow parts of the town were settled. 

The northern central parts of the town were at 
first approached from the Unadilla River and the 
Butternut Creek. Earliest among records concern- 
ing a road running directly north from the village 
is "a return for an alteration of a road beginning 
near Captain Solomon Martin's on the line be- 
tween him and Daniel Bissell and running on said 
line northerly as far as the land will permit." This 
return is dated May 10th, 1796 ; but there is noth- 
ing to show am^thing further in connection with 
such a road. The present Martin Brook road 
through to the north part of the town from Mar- 
tin's saw mill, was not opened until nearly fifty 
years after the date of this paper. 

In June 1796, commissioners, on the application 
of twelve freeholders, laid out a road "beginning 
near Aaron Axtell's house at a stake, thence run- 
ning a northwesterly course to a pine tree marked 
H; then to a pine tree marked with a blaze; 
50 



ROAD DISTRICTS IN ISOO. 

thence to a walnut staddle, also marked with a 
blaze; then running nearly the same course to a 
pine tree marked with an X ; thence running until 
it intersects the old road six rods north of the five- 
mile tree." To this project, which points to what 
was afterwards the old Kilkenny road, there was 
opposition and it was referred to a jury of twelve 
men, who reported that it was "not consistent; 
neither do we think it necessary and therefore we 
do protest against said road." Built, however, 
this road was in early times, though it had some 
years to wait. Mention of it first occurs in the 
list of road districts for 1810. 

Earliest of all roads actually opened from the vil- 
lage leading over the hills to the north, seems to 
have been the one running from near the store of 
Noble and Hayes, of which mention occurs in the 
road list for 1809, but a return for the survey of it 
had been made in 1808. The town in 1800 had al- 
ready been divided into road districts of which 
there were fifteen. The\- show with much force 
the extent to which the Unadilla township lands 
had been opened up at that early day. They are 
as follows : 

"First district, beginneth at the town line at 
Stephen Harrington's and runneth to the Unadilla 
River road. 

Second, beginneth at the Butternut Creek and 
runneth on the said Unadilla road to the Eel Ware 
Bridge. 

51 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

"Third, beginneth at the Eel Ware Bridge and 
runneth on the said road to a pine tree marked 
No. 4 at the foot of the hill. 

"Fourth, beginneth at the pine tree at the foot 
of the hill marked No. 4 ; from thence to the State 
road and from the ferry to the line of Banyar Pat- 
ent. 

" Fifth, beginneth at Banyar Patent line and run- 
ning to the two-mile tree on the State road, and 
from Colonel Baits's. 

"Sixth, beginneth at the two-mile tree and from 
thence to the Grog Shop Creek to include the 
bridge.* 

"Seventh, beginning at the east end of the village, 
thence to the foot of still water. 

" Eighth, beginning at the foot of still water and 
up the cross new road as far as Laban Crandall's 
house; from thence to the eight-mile tree. 

"Ninth, beginning at the eight-mile tree; from 
thence to the Otsdawa bridge. 

"Tenth, beginning at the Susquehanna River 
road up the Sand Hill Creek road to the north line 
of the town. 

"Eleventh, beginning at Merriman's sawmill; 
from thence to the northwest line of the town. 

"Twelfth, beginning at Laban Crandall's house; 

* As to the identity of this bacchanalian stream, it may be said that Solo- 
mon Martin and Dr. Huntington before 1800 had had licenses to sell liquor 
near Martin Brook, while Daniel Bissell's hotel, the first in Unadilla, stood 
close to the creek that crosses Main Street near S. D. Bacon's home. It 
seems probable that the latter stream is the one referred to. 

52 



OPENING THE CATSKILL TURNPIKE. 

thence through the north line of the town on the 
Sisson road. 

" Thirteenth, beginning at the river road ; thence 
up Wheaton Creek to Joseph Peam's house. 

"Fourteenth, beginning at the Wheaton road; 
from thence to the Sand Hill Creek road. 

"Fifteenth, begins at the west branch of the 
Otsdawa Creek; thence to the town of Otego 
[now Oneonta] at or near Thurston Brown's." 

Such were the roads that established communica- 
tion among the settlers — primitive highways the 
most of them, and greatly inferior to the turnpike 
that came in in 1800 as the model road for all this 
territory and which remained for many years the 
chief highway to many parts of central and south- 
ern New York. One of the earliest highways in the 
State west of the Hudson and south of the Mo- 
hawk was this one from Wattles's Ferry to Cats- 
kill, and it stands as a historic landmark of that 
great turnpike era which began with the new cen- 
tury. 

The turnpike grew out of stern necessity. So 
great had been the demand for roads pouring in 
upon State authorities from all neighborhoods, 
that it was impossible to meet them. The State 
in consequence gave to private corporations per- 
mission to open and improve roads and impose 
tolls as their recompense. Among the men who 
took stock in the Catskill Turnpike were Stephen 
Benton, Solomon Martin and Sluman Wattles, the 
53 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

price of shares being twenty dollars and the 
amount of stock twelve thousand dollars. Caleb 
Benton, who lived in Catskill and was a brother of 
Stephen, at one time was president of the company. 
Two stages were kept regularly on the road, the 
fare being five cents per mile, making the cost of 
the trip from Unadilla to Catskill about the same 
as the fare by rail from Unadilla to New York now, 
while the time consumed was three days. 

Dr. Dwight came over the road in 1804 and tells 
how he saw "a few lonely plantations recently be- 
gun", and how he "occasionally passed a cottage 
and heard the distant sounds of an axe and of a 
human voice", while all else "was grandeur, 
gloom and solitude." He describes Franklin as 
"for some miles a thinly built village, composed of 
neat, tidy houses", in which everything "indicated 
prosperity." Further down the Ouleout the 
country "bore a forbidding aspect, the houses be- 
ing thinly scattered and many of them denoted 
great poverty." 

At Wattles's Ferry he was unable to find a boat. 
Even a dinner was denied him. A bridge had been 
begun but he had to cross " a deep and rapid ford." 
Further down the river William Hanna supplied 
him with a dinner. It was the opening of this 
turnpike* which, as I have said, determined that a 
village should grow up at its western terminus. 

* Of this famous highway the author has written in greater detail in "The 
Old New York Frontier." 

54 



HOUSES STANDING IN 1808. 

Here was a stopping place, the end of the land 
journey, a place for stores and hotels, the point 
where pioneers might enter boats and thus be con- 
veyed to destinations south and west. 

The number of houses standing in the village in 
1808 could not have been more than fifteen or sev- 
enteen. At the extreme eastern end near the bridge 
lived a man named Morgan. His house was a 
rude affair dug into the bank. 

To the west of Morgan came one of the yellow 
houses, then occupied by Guido L. Bissell, who 
seems to have built it. 

Next was the home of Curtis Noble whose family 
comprised at this date his wife and his two sons 
George and Charles, then five and two years old 
respectively, and an infant daughter. 

Beyond stood the Isaac Hayes residence, built 
four years before, and already famous as the most 
attractive dwelling between Catskill and Ithaca. 

Beyond this lived Captain Amos Bostwick, 
whose wife was Sally Hayes, an aunt of Isaac 
Hayes. Captain Bostwick had served in the Revo- 
lution in the same regiment with Elijah Boardman 
of New Milford. His wife died in 1825 at the age 
of seventy-seven, and he in 1829 at the age of 
eighty-six. Clark I. Hayes could just remember 
him as "an old, infirm man, sitting by his open fire 
on the hearth, cane in hand, poking the ashes." 

Several rods to the west were the home and shoe 
shop of Fowler P. Bryan, the father of Alexander 
55 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

Bryan, standing near where the Frank Bacon 
house is. 

To reach the next dwelling, involved a walk to 
the home of Gurdon Huntington on the corner of 
Martin Brook Street. This house was built by 
Guido L. Bissell and Jerome Bates and has long 
been the oldest house in the village. Except for the 
rear part, put on afterwards, it has scarcely been 
altered since its original erection. The flight of 
time long since raised it to the eminence of a cen- 
tenarian. Besides Dr. Huntington, those who 
have owned and occupied it include Dr. David 
Walker, Dr. G. L. Halsey and Albert T. Amsden, 
while at one time it was owned by Col. A. D. Wil- 
liams. The last occupant who owned it was Peter 
Hodges, who, on the death of his wife in 1889, 
sold it to Dr. Halsey, who thus became its owner 
a second time. The design of the house is Flemish. 
Houses like it may be seen to this day in the older 
parts of Bruges and Ostend. Readers will perhaps 
pardon the personal pride which prompts the state- 
ment that beneath that roof, on an October da.y, 
some time "befo de war, " was born the writer of 
this chronicle. 

Beyond the Huntington house came the store 
and house of Solomon Martin on the land now 
occupied by the residence of Marvin P. Sweet. 
This structure remained standing for more than 
twenty years when it was torn clown to make way 
56 



HOUSES STANDING IN I80S. 

for the present house, which was built by the Rev. 
Norman H. Adams. 

The land thence westward was vacant as far 
down as the site of the present residence of Milo B. 
Gregory, on which had been erected a few years 
before the home of Stephen Benton. 

No other house existed until one reached the site 
of the E. C. Belknap home, where a house is said 
to have existed at that time, but its occupant's 
name remains unknown to me. 

Beyond this all was vacant until the yellow 
house of Aaron Axtell, the pioneer backsmith, was 
reached. 

On the southern side of the street were fewer 
houses than on the northern — in all not more than 
six. First at the eastern end came the Abijah H. 
Beach home, where Oliver Buckley lived in later 
years. It had been erected as early as 1805. Mr. 
Beach was a native of New Milford, and thus had 
for neighbors across the way three other New 
Milford families,— Hayes, Noble and Bostwick. 
Next to the west was the Daniel Bissell house, 
where Mr. Bissell at first had erected a log dwell- 
ing. He put up a frame house in 1794, which re- 
mained until 1817 when Joel Bragg built on this 
site his first hotel. 

To the west came the home of John Bissell on the 
site of the Dr. Gregory house. John Bissell owned 
the neighboring fertile island, a gift from his father. 
57 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

His house was torn down when Joel Bragg erected 
the brick dwelling. 

Further on stood the Sampson Crooker residence 
on the L. B. Woodruff site, a portion of which still 
remains at the rear of the later building. 

Next came the hotel which Dr. Cone built on the 
site of the present Unadilla House at the corner of 
Clifton Street. 

Beyond stood Jacob Hayes's house, just below 
the site of the Presbyterian Church. 

From this point there was no house until the 
Sliter place was reached beyond the present barns 
of James White. 

Such was the village of Unadilla, twenty-five 
years after Sluman Wattles and Timothy Beach 
made their settlements on the banks of the Ouleout. 
Seven years later the number of houses was thirty, 
in which fact we see the influence of the turnpike in 
building up the settlement. Dr. D wight in his 
notes of the visit made in 1804, gives as follows 
his impressions of the place and its surroundings : 

"That township in which we now were is named 
Unadilla and lies in the county of Otsego. It is 
composed of rocks, hills and valleys, with a hand- 
some collection of intervales along the Susque- 
hanna. On a remarkably rugged eminence, im- 
mediately northwest of the river, we saw the first 
oaks and chestnuts after leaving the neighborhood 
of Catskill. The intervening forests were beech, 
maple, and so forth. 

58 



DR. DWIGHT'S VISIT IN 1804. 

"The houses were scattered along the road 
which runs parallel with the river. The settlement 
is new and appears like most others of a similar 
date. Rafts, containing each from twenty to 
twenty-five thousand feet of boards, are from this 
township floated down the Susquehanna to Balti- 
more. Unadilla [the township] contained in 1800 
823 inhabitants. " 



59 



V. 

LATER MEN OF MARK. 
1804-1815. 

Important additions to the population soon fol- 
lowed the coming of Curtis Noble and Isaac Hayes. 
They included men who for a long period were to 
remain foremost citizens. One was Stephen Ben- 
ton, who came from Sheffield, Massachusetts, and 
from Peter Betts of Bainbridge in 1804 purchased 
his farm of 115 acres. Guido L. Bissell in July 
1805 charged Mr. Benton with "three day's work 
at harvest 18 shillings ", "to making drag 10 shill- 
ings", and "to putting up partition 6 shillings." 
Two years later Mr. Bissell charged against him 
"to making of bedstead 17 shillings", and "to 
making table 6 shillings." In 1810, when work 
was going forward on St. Matthew's Church, Mr. 
Bissell charged for "5^ davs work on Church, £2, 
6s." 

Mr. Benton opened a store on the northwest cor- 
ner of Main and Clifton Streets. Across the street 
may still be seen the building in which on the form- 
er site he and his son Albert long did business : it 
has the date 1816 still upon the pediment. From 
Sheffield Mr. Benton in 1816 secured as clerk a 
60 




o 
H 

x/i 

m 
o 

p 

O 
H 

ft 
W 
pq 

w 
H 

H 



MAJOR CHRISTOPHER D. FELLOWS. 

young man then fourteen years old named Christo- 
pher D. Fellows. Mr. Fellows came to Unadilla 
over the Catskill turnpike, and in 1823 became a 
partner in the store with Albert Benton. He thus 
was launched upon a business career that was to 
last nearly eighty years, his span of life extending 
to his ninety-third year. 

Major Fellows's share in building up the village 
was large. He became an active and intelligent 
force in nearly all that advanced its interests. A 
feature of the Benton and Fellows business was a 
distillery. Like Noble and Hayes this firm suffered 
from a surplus of grain. There was no other way 
by which the stock could be disposed of. A merit 
of this whiskey, however, was its purity. Much of 
the product was consumed by men engaged in lum- 
bering. So great was the demand for it, that a 
hogshead was sometimes sold at retail in one day. 
Large quantities in casks were shipped down the 
river every year. 

The Benton distillery stood in the rear of the 
present residence of Milo B. Gregory. This house 
dates from 1823, and was erected by Major Fel- 
lows and Albert Benton after an earlier house, 
built by Stephen Benton, had been destroyed by 
fire. Stephen Benton died in April 1840 at the age 
of sixty-six. The wife of Major Fellows was his 
daughter. Major Fellows was elected to the As- 
sembly in 1845 when John A. Dix and Daniel S. 
Dickinson were chosen United States Senators. In 
61 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

1894, almost fifty years after that event, Major 
Fellows went to Albany and was invited to sit in 
the speaker's chair.* 

Contemporary with the coming of Stephen Ben- 
ton was the coming of Sherman Page, a native of 
Cheshire, Connecticut, where he was born in 1779. 
His father was Jared Page, who settled in what is 
now the town of Greene, Chenango County, at a 
place still known as Page Brook, on a stream that 
flows into the Chenango River a few miles above 
Port Crane. About 1799 Sherman Page went 
over into the adjoining town of Coventry and 
there taught the first school in the place. He read 
law about this time and went to Unadilla to open 
an office, being the first man in the village to 
practice that profession regularly. 

He was here as early as 1805 and in 1807 was 
elected a path master. With his father he had 
come into the country by way of Wattles's Ferry 
of which he must have retained the vivid recollect- 
ions of youth. Into most enterprises, Mr. Page's 
energies appear to have entered, whether these 
were social, religious or commercial. He was sup- 
ervisor in 1826 and in three other years, a member 
of Assembly in 1827, and a member of Congress 



* The family to which Major Fellows belonged had interesting connection 
with the Revolution, A great uncle of his, John Fellows, served in the 
French and Indian war, was a member of the Massachusetts Provincial 
Congress in 1775, and when news of the battle of Lexington reached his 
home in Sheffield commanded a regiment which departed the next morning 
for the scene of conflict. In 1773 he was one of the Berkshire committee 
appointed to take into consideration the grievances of America against 

62 



JUDGE SHERMAN PAGE. 

from 1833 to 1837. He was also county judge. 
He built and long occupied the house where now 
lives Mr. George W. Hardy, but later on his home 
was in the stone house across the street. His wife 
was a niece of Sampson Crooker, and he had five 
children,— Robert who was a lawyer in Flint, 
Michigan, Vincent who also went West and long 
afterwards died in Unadilla, Elizabeth who became 
the wife of George H. Noble, and long survived as 
the widow of her second husband, Arthur Yates of 
Waverley, Mary who was the first wife of William 
H. Emory, and Maria, the first wife of Frederick 
A. Sands. Judge Page died in September, 1853. 

Mr. Emory was a native of Maryland and was 
born in 1811. He came to Unadilla about sixty 
3 T ears ago and was all his life engaged in the dry 
goods trade, at one time in the building that now 
adjoins White's store on the west, but which then 
stood on the lot opposite J. Fred. Sands's resi- 
dence, later at the corner of Main and Clifton 
Streets, in the brick building that was destroyed in 
the fire of 1878, and still later in the old brick store 
uptown. He was an active member of the Metho- 
dist Church and his home was the westerly one of 
the two stone houses, its builder having been Fred- 
erick A. Sands. 

England. The report they drew up declared that Americans were "en- 
titled to all the privileges and liberties of native-born British subjects, in- 
cluding the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, liberty and properly." 
This interesting declaration is more than two years older than the one 
drawn up at the Mecklenburgh, North Carolina, which ia turn is older than 
the immortal one drawn up by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. 

63 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

As early as 1805 had come the first of four 
brothers who were to leave a distinct mark on the 
growth of the village,— Dr. Adanijah Cone. His 
first home was the original hotel that stood at 
Main and Clifton Streets which he built, and of 
which for several years he was the proprietor. He 
then built the rear portion of the house that was 
afterwards the home of his son, Lewis G. Cone, and 
in which now lives his grandson, Frederick L. 
Cone. In 1808, his two brothers, Daniel and 
Gilbert, followed him, and in 1815, the fourth 
brother, Gardner. Daniel and Gilbert first lived in 
an old house on the south side of the road about 
one hundred rods from the present James White 
house. The White house was built by them in 
1815. These brothers Cone came from Hebron, 
Connecticut. Their varied interests comprised 
farm lands, a fulling mill, a store, a hotel and the 
practice of medicine. 

Daniel and Gilbert Cone in 1808 bought 300 
acres of land from Mr. Sliter and in 1811 Lot 92 of 
the Wallace Patent from the Lansings of Albany. 
They did a large business in fulling and dressing 
cloth, people coming from far and near with the 
cloth they had woven at home. Theodore Hanford 
and Erastus Kingsley at one time were employed 
by them. Gardner Cone settled on the farm after- 
wards the home of Salmon G. Cone, who was his 
nephew. Gardner Cone's wife was Sarah Robert- 
son, a sister of Niel Robertson. Daniel married 
64 



THE CONE BROTHERS. 

Margaret Hull, a sister of Airs. Calvin Gates, and 
for second wife married Hannah Taylor, a sister of 
Lydia Taylor, the wife of Dr. Cone. Lydia Taylor 
had a niece also named Lydia Taylor who became 
the wife of Erastus Kingsley. Hannah Taylor 
Cone, after her husband's death, removed to Con- 
necticut, where on January 8, 1894, she died at the 
age of ninety-four. 

Dr. Cone died in 1862 at the age of eighty-four. 
His widow when she died was past ninety. Their 
son Lewis G. Cone was for a great number of 
years one of the best known citizens of the village. 
With his brother-in-law Frederick A. Bolles, he 
was long engaged in business. Captain Bolles 
came to the village in 1838 and remained here un- 
til his death in June, 1891. He arrived from 
Oxford, to which place he had gone from his native 
town of Vernon, Oneida County. He purchased 
the hotel at Main and Bridge Streets and con- 
ducted it for several years when he sold the property 
to Colonel Thomas Heath. He married Julia A. 
Cone in 1839, and afterwards went into the hard- 
ware trade with Lewis G. Cone. For almost forty 
years the two were partners. On the death of 
Mr. Cone in 1878, the partnership was continued 
with Mr. Cone's only son, Frederick L. Cone. 

Captain Bolles in 1S45 was captain of a com- 
pany which went out from this village during the 
anti-rent difficulties in Delaware County. It was 
a company of light infantry from the 151st Regi- 

5 65 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

ment, described by Jay Gould as " composed 
mostly of young men who with a little drilling 
made excellent soldiers". Colonel Samuel North, 
who afterwards came to Unadilla where the re- 
mainder of his life was spent, commanded the regi- 
ment. His orders were to hold it "in readiness to 
answer any call that may be made for additional 
force should it be deemed necessary". At the 
funeral of the murdered Deputy Sheriff Steele in 
Delhi on August 10, the Rev. Norman H. Adams 
from Unadilla assisted in the services. Captain 
Bolles was supervisor of Unadilla in 1851 and in 
1861 was a member of Assembly. His first wife 
died in 1868, and in 1871 he married Mrs. W. S. 
Bryant of Guilford. 

Following Captain Bolles came his brother, 
Frank G. Bolles, who spent the remainder of his 
life almost entirely in this village. He was long 
associated with his brother and Lewis G. Cone in 
the hardware business, at one time as employe, at 
another as partner. He was prominently identi- 
fied with Free Masonry in this part of the State, 
and was Postmaster under President Cleveland, 
and saw service in the Civil War. He was all his 
life one of the most agreeable personalities in the 
village, his gift of humor being marked and its 
manifestations incessant. He knew everybody 
and everybody knew him. His death did more 
than any other event in a long period of years to 

66 



SALMON G. CONE. 

eclipse the gaiety of life in public places. Fare- 
you-well, friend of us all. 

Of those four brothers Cone, Dr. Cone's grand- 
son, Frederick L. Cone, now alone in the male line 
survives on village soil to preserve the family 
name. To this family belonged the late Salmon G. 
Cone, but neither of the four brothers was his an- 
cestor. They were his uncles. His father was 
Zachariah Cone, who remained in Connecticut 
where Salmon G. was born and grew up. Salmon 
taught school in Connecticut, afterwards in Sag 
Harbor on Long Island and in Kentucky. He 
came to Unadilla in 1843, and thenceforth until 
his death few men in this part of the upper Sus- 
quehanna valley were better known. He had often 
been elected supervisor and alwa3 r s by an unusu- 
ally large majority. The energies of his nature 
were mainly directed to private enterprises extend- 
ing much beyond the limits of the village. One 
who knew him well for the most of his life thus 
wrote of him after his death : 

" He was a bold and outspoken advocate of 
any cause which he espoused. While this some- 
times made his conduct seem rash and injudicious, 
no one who knew him could fail to have respect for 
his character, which seemed to be above the use of 
means to which men ordinarily resort. He could 
do nothing by indirection. His antagonisms were 
open as the day, and he was the most firm and 
steadfast of friends. Mr. Cone's early training, 
67 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

habits and proverbial industry and thouglitfulness 
would have made him successful anywhere. He 
saw all his projects thrive. From small invest- 
ments he watched his fortune grow to imposing 
proportions and he was proud in the contempla- 
tion that it was all the work of his hands. He 
lived a great, generous, liberal, manly life and he 
was in accord with whatever was brave and manly 
in the community, as he understood it." 

Mr. Cone died in April, 1890, in his seventy- 
eighth year. He lies buried on the outer edge of 
that elevated plain where a new cemetery has been 
opened, overlooking the peaceful village from the 
Sidney shore of the Susquehanna. 

In those first years of the century came other 
settlers of note —William Wilmot in 1800, Niel 
Robertson and John Eells in 1811, and David 
Finch in 1814. William Wilmot was the first cabi- 
net maker. A memorandum made by Guido L. 
Bissell in April, 1800, reads, " Wilmot and Hayes 
began to board with me", and another " Hayes 
left of the 12th of December." Mr. Wilmot was 
born in Danbury, Connecticut, in 1780, and died in 
1849. Near the home of the late A. P. Gray still 
stands the building where he did business. The 
house in which his son Daniel W. Wilmot long lived 
was built by him. Mr. Wilmot married Rachel 
Wattles, a relative of Nathaniel Wattles. She died 
in 1812, and he then married her sister Octavia, 
who was the mother of Daniel. Mr. Wilmot's 
68 



WILMOT. HEATH AND SPERRY. 

third wife was Nancy Cleveland. Later he mar- 
ried Ann Smith. He and they all lie buried in the 
village churchyard. His business was continued 
until quite recent times by his son, with whom 
was associated Colonel Thomas Heath. 

Colonel Heath from 1844 until 1858 kept the 
hotel at Main and Bridge Streets and at one time 
was Sheriff of the county. He was afterwards 
proprietor of the Oquaga House in Deposit which 
got its name from the ancient and historic Susque- 
hanna town, Oghwaga. From the doorway of 
this hotel many persons, born in Unadilla, first 
saw a railway train. After the opening of the Al- 
bany and Susquehanna Railroad, Colonel Heath 
returned to Unadilla. Here he died in 1889. He 
was born in Walton in 1812 and was the father of 
George W. Heath. 

Niel Robertson came from the same place as the 
Cones,— Hebron. He bought from them his Una- 
dilla land in 1814 and thereon built the house 
which still stands under the hill at the extreme 
lower end of the village. Elsewhere he survived to 
a very old age. His wife died from a lightning 
stroke. When Mr. Robertson came to Unadilla he 
brought a child five years old who was afterwards 
married to the Rev. Lyman Sperry. Another 
daughter became the wife of A. P. Gray. 

Mr. Sperry, who was the father of Watson R. 
Sperry, for many years managing editor of The 
New York Evening Post, and who afterwards 
69 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

went to Persia as the United States Minister under 
President Harrison, was born in Alford, Massa- 
chusetts, in 1808, and was a son of Nathan Sperry, 
whose family had settled originally in Hartford, 
Connecticut. He became a minister of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal church and at one time was Presid- 
ing Elder of the Otsego district. Mr. Sperry died 
in 1892. I recall him best in his old age, when the 
stoop of senility was upon him, and the kindly, 
almost eager, interest he always took in anything 
I chose to say to him. I cannot forget those con- 
versations, each summer for man}' years in vaca- 
tion time, on sidewalks and in dooryards, with this 
beautiful old man. 

Mr. Gray was a native of Durham, Greene Coun- 
ty. He was born in 1811 and came to Unadilla in 
-1832. He was an old friend of the Rev. Norman 
H. Adams who had lived at the neighboring town 
of Oak Hill. Mr. Gray engaged in harness making 
in Mechanic's Hall, and later in carriage trimming. 
After marriage he lived in the house that Sampson 
Crooker owned on the L. B. Woodruff site. Late 
in life he was employed in a responsible place by 
the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad Company. 
In the rear of his house on land of his, once existed 
a brickyard where were made the bricks used in 
constructing the store destroyed in the fire of 1878. 
Mr. Gra}' died in November, 1886. 

John Eells came from Walton. He followed 
marked trees to find the way. He was a shoemaker 
70 



GRAY, EELLS AND FINCH. 

and tanner, and near the residence of the late John 
VanCott opened the first tannery in the village. 
For a time he lived in the Priest house. The rear 
portion of Elizabeth Clark's home was built by 
him as a shoe shop on lower Main Street. He died 
in 1870 at the age of eighty-four. His son Horace 
Eells survived in Unadilla until about three years 
ago. For a long period he continued the business 
of tanning and was actively identified with the 
Presbyterian church. 

David Finch was a son of Daniel Finch, an Eng- 
lishman who settled in Litchfield, Connecticut, 
before the Revolution. David Finch was one of 
four children. He married Ruth Mallery of Corn- 
wall, Connecticut, whose father, like his own, had 
come from England to America before the war. 
After his marriage David Finch lived for some 
3'ears in Oxford, Connecticut, where he engaged in 
manufacturing woolen cloth and where four chil- 
dren were born. His business declined after the 
War of 1812, and in 1814 he set out for Unadilla 
where he engaged in building. 

His first home in the village was in the western 
end beyond the Wilmot house. He afterwards 
bought a farm in Sidney, opposite the old fulling 
mill, but some years afterward returned to the vil- 
lage and lived in the Masonic Hall, while it occu- 
pied the old Brick Store lot. In 1820 he acquired 
the house afterwards removed to its present site 
by Horace Eells. It was then an unfinished build- 
71 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

ing which had been begun by Thomas Noble. Mr. 
Finch, assisted by William J. Thompson, com- 
pleted it and made it his home. 

His first considerable work as a builder was the 
Roswell Wright house, afterwards the residence of 
Senator David P. Loomis, which was erected in 
1823 or 1824. The panel lumber used for it cost 
only five dollars per thousand. Mr. Finch built 
the Edson house below the Presbyterian church 
about the same time, and in company with Lord 
and Bottom did work on St. Matthew's church. 
Of him William J. Thompson learned his trade. 
Mr. Finch was born in 1782 and died in 1841, 
His son, William T. Finch, who died a few years 
ago in Chicago was long a citizen of Unadilla. A 
daughter was the wife of Rufus G. Mead. 

Mr. Thompson was born in Saratoga in 1805 
and came with his father to Otego in 1808, and to 
Unadilla as an apprentice to Mr. Finch in 1824. 
He and Mr. Finch were afterwards partners and 
together reared many structures still standing in 
Unadilla village, as well as in other places, includ- 
ing Meredith Square and Coventr}'. Mr. Thomp- 
son was a member of St. Matthew's Church for 
sixty years or more. He died in Savannah, Geor- 
gia, in Januar\% 1895, and his body was brought 
to the old churchyard for burial. In the Masonic 
Hall, while an apprentice, Mr. Thompson found 
his first Unadilla home, scarcely dreaming that he 
would live to move the edifice to its present place 
72 



WILLIAM J. THOMPSON. 

as his own residence for nearly fifty years — the 
house now the summer home of his son-in-law 
Lester T. Hubbell. 

A friend of Curtis Noble and Isaac Hayes who 
soon followed them to Unadilla, was Melancthon 
B. Jarvis who was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, 
in June, 1775, where he had known Josiah Thatcher. 
He settled on the Timothy Beach farm near 
the mouth of the Ouleout, but later moved to the 
village and occupied part of the house |Sheldon 
Griswold long lived in. He died in 1856. 

Captain Josiah Thatcher about the same time 
settled on a neighboring farm, part of which has 
since been known as the Sternberg place. He had 
served in the Revolution three years. In the house 
which still stands on the place he lived until he 
died in 1856 at the age of eighty-six. His wife was 
Anna Reed, and his children were Polly, George, 
Esther, Harriet, Nanc}^, Amelia and Frances. His 
ancestor was an Englishman from Kent, who on 
arrival in America was shipwrecked off Cape Cod, 
where a lighthouse was afterwards set up and 
named after him. 



73 



VI. 

A GRIST AND SAWMILL 
CENTRE. 

1790--1812. 

Until the new century had well started on its 
course, the only business in the country yielding 
much cash was lumbering, which involved journeys 
down the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers to 
Harrisburgh, Baltimore and Philadelphia. So ex- 
tensive became this industry that others were neg- 
lected and prophets of evil predicted the ruin of the 
country. Every settlement in the valley had many 
sawmills, not only on the river but along tribu- 
tary streams. Spaftbrd in 1813 reported that 
Unadilla alone had sixteen, five of which were ac- 
companied by grist mills. 

Among the mills which exerted influence in fixing 
the sites of villages considerable eminence belongs 
to those situated in Unadilla village near the 
mouth of the Binnekill. Originally they were 
known as the Bissell mills. This site was chosen 
in order to make use of the waters of Martin 
Brook and other streams which there found a way 
into the Susquehanna. Martin Brook at that 
time was a much larger stream than now. Indeed, 
74 



MARTIN BROOK. 

on village land, it consisted, as already stated, of 
two streams which formed an island, a branch 
starting some distance below the old Peter Weid- 
raan place, proceeding westward and southward 
until it crossed Main Street near a willow tree at 
the old Post Office corner, and thence went across 
the Woodruff lands to join the main channel in the 
churchyard. Besides the waters of this brook, 
there flowed through the village two smaller 
creeks then having a larger volume than now, one 
near the residence of Samuel D. Bacon, the other 
crossing Alain Street several rods further east. Be- 
fore the timber was cut these three streams com- 
bined to pour into the river a large volume of 
water. 

The first mill on the site of the present mills was 
the sawmill built by Daniel Bissell some years before 
1800 and supplied by the waters of these three 
creeks. At the point near where the combined 
streams emerged into the river, the banks on both 
the island and the mainland shore were high, thus 
affording a natural site for a dam. Daniel Bissell 
probably erected his sawmill here as early as 1790. 
We, therefore, have in this mill the pioneer industry 
for Unadilla village, the first distinct industry in 
which men engaged aside from farming. 

As early as 1803, additional water had been se- 
cured from the river through a small raceway dug 
03^ John Bissell and a man named Mason. The 
volume of water was further increased b} r a dam 
75 



THE PIONEERS OF UNAD1LLA. 

thrown across the river at the head of this race- 
way. The lumber industry having expanded, other 
mills had been erected further up Martin Brook, 
thus interfering with the supply of water, and 
making it necessary to obtain a new source from 
the river. The original raceway, still called the 
Binnekill, was a much smaller affair than the pres- 
ent one. By using a pole one could leap across it. 
It is not unlikely that some water always flowed 
through from the river, except when the water 
might be very low. It became an easy matter to 
enlarge the volume by deepening the bed. Evi- 
dence exists above the present river dam on the is- 
land side that an earlier dam had been built there 
mnning diagonally up the stream, instead of 
straight across as now. M. W. Duley, who owned 
the property for many years and often made re- 
pairs to the present dam, held to the opinion that 
the original dam was a primitive affair constructed 
of brush and stone like an eel rack dam. 

There still exists in Mrs. Sumner's hands a certi- 
fied copy of the contract for the sale of this prop- 
erty to Sampson Crooker in 1803, as made by the 
owners, Daniel Bissell and John Bissell. It pro- 
vided that Mr. Crooker should have " the privilege 
of opening the artificial raceway called the Bine- 
kill wider if necessary to supply the mill with 
water and throwing out the dirt on the bank of 
said Binekill, together with all the privileges and 
appurtenances unto the said land, sawmill and 
76 



SAMPSON CROOKER AND THE BINNEKILL. 

Binekill* belonging, and also the dam on the river." 
With the mill, the raceway and the dam Mr. 
Crooker acquired a considerable tract of land, in 
lots 98 and 99 of the Wallace patent, on which 
were houses inhabited by Brewster Piatt and 
Elijah Ferry. 

The contract further specified that Mr. Crooker 
should have "the privilege of digging a ditch 
through on the line between said Livingston's land 
and said Bissell's land from the mill to the river, 
on condition that Livingston stop the water where 
it now runs into the river." For this property 
Mr. Crooker was to pay eleven hundred dollars. 
He was described as "of Canton, Greene County." 
Mr. Crooker probably erected the grist mill soon 
after 1804. It was standing in 1808 and he owned 
the property until finally sold to Joel Bragg. Mr. 
Crooker's home stood on the site of the L. B. 
W T oodruff house in a lot which then embraced also 
the St. Matthew's Church ground and the ceme- 
tery. His brothers George and Jacob soon fol- 
lowed him to Unadilla from Cairo.f 

*This word is of German origin. Binnen, meaning inner, has often been 
combined with gewasser, zee and other aqueous terms, as in the case of the 
Ulster County Binnewater and Great Binnewater Binekill, or more proper- 
ly Biunekill, means therefore an inner creek. The word could hardly have 
come fiom Connecticut. Perhaps it is ante-Revolutionary and was be- 
stowed by some of the German settlers in the valley, who on Brant's arrival 
fled to German Flatts and /Esopus. Daniel Bissell, however, who had in- 
terests at German Flatts. may have found the term applied to such a stream 
at that place and then adopted it himself, 

f During the War of 1812, while going down the river with a raft of lum- 
ber with a man named Cooper, a Mason from Bainbridge, then called Jeri- 
cho, George Crooker and Mr. Cooper were captured by the British and 
taken before Admiral Sir George Cockburn. Cooper ventured to give 

77 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

From Sampson Crooker these mills passed to 
Joel Bragg, whose life was one of the most stirring 
and impressive to be found in these annals. Mr. 
Bragg was a native of Vermont. With his father 
early in the century he went to Chenango County. 
The father seems to have been a " Vermont suffer- 
er", one of those who were deprived of their Ver- 
mont lands b\ r the settlement of the disputes 
growing out of the New Hampshire Grants, and 
had received land in Chenango County as compen- 
sation for his losses. About the year 1812, Joel 
Bragg came to Unadilla and purchased land that 
had been a part of the original Daniel Bissell 
purchase. He built a new hotel on the site of Mr. 
Bissell's hotel, and when this was burned he re- 
built it. George W. Reynolds of Franklin, a few 
years ago, recalled how in 1828 he had stopped at 
this hotel with his father, finding it "full of brawny 
men whose business seemed to be hauling logs to 
the sawmill and boards to the Delaware at Wal- 
ton for rafting to Trenton and Philadelphia mar- 
kets." 

After Mr. Bragg bought the grist and sawmill 
property from Mr. Crooker, he met with a second 
misfortune. The mills were burned. It is related 

Oockburn the Masonic sign, hoping to secure release. Both men were dis- 
charged and returned home, attributing their good fortune to Mr. Cooper 's 
membership in the Masonic Order, In the following year Cockburn re- 
turned to England. Napoleon had just been overthrown at Waterloo and 
to Cockburn was assigned the duty of conveying the fallen Emperor into 
exile at St, Helena. He remained in St. Helena in charge of Napoleon as 
Governor of the island until the following summer. It seems proper to re- 
mark that Mr. Crooker's friend in Jericho might have gor«e to St. Helena 
with his Masonic sign and helped Napoleon out of his difficulties. 

78 



JOEL BRAGG AND HIS MILLS. 

that, on the morning after the fire, Mr. Bragg was 
seen coming down the street smoking a pipe and 
with an axe over his shoulder. Asked where he 
was going, his reply was, that he was starting for 
the woods to cut timber for a new mill. This illus- 
trates the indomitable pluck of Joel Bragg. He 
not only erected a new sawmill but the stone 
building used for the gristmill was his work. 

Later on Mr. Bragg built the present brick house 
belonging to the Dr. Gregory estate, making the 
bricks himself, in the lot between the schoolhouse 
grounds and the railroad station. This was not 
long after 1837. Students at the old Academy can 
recall the ditches that formerly existed in that 
ground, where clay had been taken out to make 
bricks. The land being marshy there, these ditches 
were commonly full of water and became populous 
with frogs. I well remember going there with 
other boys to catch these frogs with spears, roast- 
ing their legs at the fire we built nearby. 

Mr. Bragg died in 1870 at the age of eighty-five 
years and ten months. A son of his who was 
reared in this village rose to honors elsewhere — 
Edward S. Bragg. He was born in Unadilla in 
1827, was educated at Hobart College and read 
law in the office of Judge Noble. Admitted to the 
bar in 1848, he soon removed to Fond du Lac, 
Wisconsin, where he had held several offices before 
1860, and in that year became a delegate to the 
Charleston Convention which nominated Stephen 
79 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

A„ Douglass. He became a captain in the army in 
1861 and rose to the rank of Brigadier-General, 
with which he was mustered out in October, 1865, 
having served in nearly all the campaign of the 
Army of the Potomac. He was a delegate to the 
Democratic conventions which nominated Seymour, 
Greeley and Cleveland. The first nomination of 
Cleveland was seconded b}' him in a speech which 
became celebrated all over the country for its al- 
lusion to Tammany Hall's opposition to Cleveland, 
General Bragg sa\ang Cleveland was admired "for 
the enemies he had made." General Bragg has 
been repeatedly elected to Congress where he was 
always a conspicuous figure on the Democratic 
side. He was seriously mentioned as a candidate 
for President on the Sound Money Democratic 
ticket, to run during the first Bryan campaign. 

These village mills have had many names con- 
temporary with their owners. Besides the Bissells 
and Mr. Bragg, the owners have included N. F. 
Brant, Albert T. Hodges, M. W. Duley and H. Y. 
Canfield,the present owner. Historic amongindus- 
tries in this village the\r stand. Elsewhere in the 
town, few, if any, pioneer mills still remain, and 
fewer still have any work to perform. Even here 
the familiar hum of wheel and buzz of saw, which 
aforetime were often the onty sounds that the vil- 
lage heard in still summer afternoons, and which 
formerly were often heard through the night time 
also, now seldom startle even the most listening 
80 



GEN. EDWARD S. BRAGG. 

ear. What piles of logs have I not seen gathered 
about that site in boyhood times; what sleigh- 
loads have I not seen pass through village streets, 
now and then to climb upon their tops for a ride to 
the mill site to watch their unloading! Grass is 
now growing close to the highway where logs once 
were piled to the utmost limit, and seldom does 
any sound emerge from either mill roof or shed. 



81 



VII. 

CHURCHES, BRIDGES AND 
A SCHOOL. 

1809-1824. 

The earliest religious services held in Unadilla 
village appear to have been conducted tn' "Father" 
Nash. He came to Otsego Count}' as a mission- 
ary near the end of the eighteenth century and 
labored in many parts of the county with great 
zeal and fruitful results for the remainder of his 
life. His wife often went with him to distant 
places on horseback, she leading in the singing 
while he conducted the services. Of many Episco- 
pal Churches in the county, he, in a spiritual sense, 
was the founder. 

"Father" Nash had held services many times in 
Unadilla before St. Matthew's Church was founded, 
the meetings being held in private houses and 
even in barns. To his influence was largely due 
the denominational character of that Church, es- 
tablished as it was in a community composed so 
largely of men who had come from the home of 
Congregationalism. It was due to his influence 
upon them, combined with the fact that several of 
these men had already acquired some acquaintance 
82 



ST. MATTHEW'S CHURCH. 

with the Episcopal faith, that the Church took on 
the Episcopal character. These men were Curtis 
Noble, Isaac Hayes, Josiah Thatcher, Abijah H. 
Beach, Solomon Martin, Dr. Cone and Sherman 
Page. They had all come from some of the few 
Connecticut towns in which Episcopalianism had 
been able at last to secure a foothold. To its forms 
and faith they were not wholly strangers. 

Among the first Episcopal clergymen who 
preached in Connecticut was a member of the 
family to which Mr. Beach belonged, the Rev. 
John Beach, who changed to that faith from 
Congregationalism in 1732, and became an active 
man in the formation of Episcopal Churches in sev- 
eral Litchfield towns. In 1740, he rendered such 
services to Woodbury, the ancestral home of Solo- 
mon Martin, where in 1783 was held a meeting 
which has historic fame as the first step taken in 
this country to secure Episcopal authority, Samuel 
Seabury being selected as bishop. 

In 1736, the Rev. Jonathan Arnold, another 
Episcopal clergyman, held services at New Mil- 
ford, the home of Mr. Noble and Mr. Hayes, 
"where the use of the Lord's prayer, the creed and 
the ten commandments, or the reading of the scrip- 
tures in divine service was never before known", 
while at New Milford in 1764 a church was or- 
ganized. At Hebron, the home of the Cones, was 
formed in 1734 the sixth Episcopal Church ever 
known in the state of Connecticut; while at 
83 



THE PIONEERS OE IX4DILLA. 

Cheshire, the home of Sherman Page, a Church edi- 
fice had first been erected in 1760. The Nobles of 
New Milford were among the most active support- 
ers of the Episcopal Church in that place. Mr. 
Haves when he came to I nadilla, although his 
sympathies as an Englishman's son, were perhaps 
in that direction, was not a professing Episcopal- 
ian, In New Milford dwelt friends of Episcopal- 
ianism named Thatcher. Partridge Thatcher, who 
went there originally from Lebanon, was the 
architect of the New Milford church. To the same 
family belonged Josiah Thatcher who came from 
Xorwalk, where also Episcopal beginnings had 
been made. 

When finally it was decided to form a Church in 
Unadilla, the chief inspiring cause was a desire to 
elevate the moral tone of thecommunit}' : a frontier 
settlement seldom maintains a high standard of 
social life. The motive, therefore, was not so much 
to found a Church of any one denomination, as to 
found a Church of some kind. The denominational 
character of the society was finally determined by 
a vote. Sherman Page presided at the meeting 
and the vote was equally divided between Episco- 
palians and Presbyterians. Mr. Page was there- 
fore called upon to give a casting vote, and thus 
turned the scale in favor of an Episcopal Church. 
This meeting was held in 1809. 

For the first permanent rector, the wardens 
and vestrymen sent to Connecticut and secured 
84 



REV. NORMAN H. ADAMS. 

the Rev. Russell Wheeler who came in the sprir.. 
1814-, remaining until August 1819. Josiah That- 
cher made a special journey to Connecticut to 
arrange for his coming. Mr. Wheeler was a grad- 
uate of Williams College and had studied divinity 
under Bishop Hobart. Before coming to Unadilla 
he had been rector of a Church in Watertown, Con- 
necticut, ten miles from New Milford. After leav- 
ing Unadilla, he was rector of the Church in Morris. 
For him was built the house that formerly stood 
where now stands the Sperry residence, and in 
which afterwards lived Albert Benton and Brad- 
ford Kingsle\\ 

For one year following Mr. Wheeler, the B 
James Keeler was rector, and then came the B 
Marcus A. Perry who remained five years, his home 
being in the Howard house. Next came the rector 
who of all men that ever ministered over this 
Church perhaps made the deepest personal imp! 
sion and exerted the widest influence on thecommu- 
nity, the Rev. Norman H. Adams. He was rector 
of St. Matthew's from 1825 until 1853, the year 
of his death. In the year of his coming. Colonel 
George H. Noble addressed to his cousin, Susan E. 
Hayes, who was then in New York, a letter in 
which he said : 

44 We are now preparing for Christmas, on which 

occasion we calculate to have Mr. Adams preach 

for us. He commences an engagement to preach 

for us for half the time for six months. He has 

85 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

preached here two Sundays and was very much 
liked by all who heard him. He writes elegantly 
and is quite an orator; so I think we shall not 
have so many dull, go-to-meetingless Sundays this 
winter as we had anticipated. " 

The grave of Mr. Adams with the striking monu- 
ment that indicates its site is a familiar spot in the 
churchyard. Mr. Adams came from Greene County 
and was an old friend of Arnold B. Watson, who 
came to Unadilla from the same neighborhood. 

Ground for a Church edifice and burial purposes 
was purchased in January 1810. A headstone in 
the churcl^ard still marks that date as the year of 
the first interment. A contract was let in the same 
year to Sampson Crooker for the construction of a 
building thirty feet by fifty, but for want of means 
the frame stood as a skeleton for two years after- 
ward, when the structure was at last finished. 
Trinity Church of New York city supplied the par- 
ish with the money needed for this purpose— fourteen 
hundred dollars. The means by which that opu- 
lent corporation was induced to make the contri- 
bution forms an interesting story. It has come 
down from Judge Page, through the recollections 
of Lester Hubbell.* 

The vestry of St. Matthew's had decided to ask 
Trinity for help and Judge Page was sent to New 
York to make the application. He found on arri- 
val that Trinity had so many applications of the 

* Printed in the Unadilla Times in August 1900. 

86 




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OLD TRINITY HELPS ST. MATTHEW'S. 

kind that its policy bad been to decline all, but the 
Judge, by means of the City Directory, ascertained 
the personal addresses of all members of the vestry 

and proceeded to call upon them. On meeting 

with a refusal from the first one he told him how 

much he regretted to return home without securing 

a single vole, and asked as a favor that he might 
have this man's vote. The vestryman at last con- 
sented, but assured the Judge he could not possibly 

secure the gift. The Judge then called upon the 

other vestrymen and employed the same methods 
as with the first. Bach was to give him one vote 
in order to save his pride on returning home. 
When the vestry of Trinity ea me together, the re- 
quest from St. Matthew's was duly read by the 
clerk, put to a vote, and, to the surprise of every 
one present except the Judge, was passed unani- 
mously. The Judge is said to have kept his counte- 
nance in a state of rigid repose, when he rose to his 
feet and thanked the vestry for their generosity. 

Bishop Ilobart consecrated the Church in 1814 
and in 1817 a bell that had been cast in London 
was set up. In 1 84.~> the church at a cost of fifteen 
hundred dollars was enlarged and entirely re- 
modeled by William J. Thompson. This was 
during the administration of Mr. Adams: it was 
newly consecrated by Bishop DeLancey. About 
seven years afterwards another enlargement of the 
nave was made by Mr. Thompson and Lewis 
Carmichael, during the rectorship of the Rev. 
87 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

Samuel H. Norton. About the time when Trinity 
Church gave the fourteen hundred dollars, Goulds- 
borough Banyar gave the Church 116 acres of land 
two miles below the village, — a property which 
was retained until some years after the Civil War, 
when it was sold and the present rectory in part 
built from the proceeds. 

The first grave opened within the burial ground 
was that of Edward Howell, a sea captain, who, 
early in the century, had abandoned his roving life 
and settled on the Nathaniel Wattles place intend- 
ing there to spend the remainder of his days. 
When the purchase of this land was under consid- 
eration, Mr. Howell was asked for a subscription. 
He declined on the ground that he had just sold 
his farm with the intention of going with his 
family to Bath, Steuben County. A few days af- 
terwards, Captain Howell was taken ill and died. 
Thus his grave was the first ever opened in those 
grounds. As may still be seen, the stone that 
marks Captain Howell's grave was "inscribed by 
his children." The family removed to Bath where 
one of his sons became a judge and member of 
Congress. 

In this churchyard are buried many of the first 
Unaditla pioneers, as well as men who followed 
them in the first half of the nineteenth century, 
among the number Solomon Martin, Guido L. Bis- 
sell, Josiah Thatcher, James Hughston, Tsaac 
Hayes, Curtis Noble, Stephen Benton, Sherman 
SS 



CAPT. EDWARD HOWELL. 

Page, William Wilmot, Adanijah, Daniel, Gilbert 
and Gardner Cone, Abijah II. Beach, David Fineh, 
Niel Robertson, Fowler P. Bryan, Joel Bragg, Col. 
A. D. Williams, Henry Ogden, Dr. John Colwell, 
Erastus Kingsley, Arnold B. Watson, Col. Samuel 
North, Frederick A. Sands, Rev. Xorman H.Adams, 
L. Bennett Woodruff, Henry S. Woodruff, and Dr. 
Gaius L. Halsey. 

An earlier burial plaee than this stood just east 
of Lester Hubbell's summer home. There was 
buried Daniel Bissell. Mr. Thompson remembered 
the head stone that marked his grave. What dis- 
position was made of these graves when thegrounds 
were abandoned as a burial place, the author has 
been unable to ascertain. 

Contemporary with the founding of St. Mat- 
thew's Church was the founding of Freedom Lodge. 
Its charter dates from the same year— 1809. De 
Witt Clinton was then Grand Master of the Grand 
Lodge of the State. At the organization of the 
lodge, Stephen Benton was made master, Abijah 
H. Beach senior warden, and Sherman Page, junior 
warden. For some years meetings were held in 
the house of Stephen Benton. During that period, 
the lodge records were lost in a fire which destroyed 
Mr. Benton's house. In the time of the anti-Ma- 
sonic movement, growing out of the Morgan trag- 
edy, the lodge was practically closed. But in 1854, 
it was reorganized, with A. B. Watson as Master, 
89 



THE PIONEERS OE INADILLA. 

and R. G. Mead and A. D. Williams as wardens. 
To a much later date belongs the Chapter. 

After St. Matthew's, the next oldest village 
Church is the Presbyterian, the influence of which 
has been an important factor in spiritual and so- 
cial life. Two Presbyterian missionaries had been 
here before 1800, and possibly as early as the 
coming of "Father" Nash. Perhaps it was due 
to them that so much early Calvinistic strength 
had been shown in Cooperstown and Sidney. But 
Elihu Spencer and Gideon Hawley had been more 
than forty years in advance of them, those men 
coming as missionaries to the Indians. It is, 
therefore, true that the earliest religious teachings 
in the vallej^ came from men of the Presbyterian 
faith, although on village soil the pioneer,— in so 
far as depth of impression was concerned, and 
possibly as a matter of date also— was "Father" 
Nash, an Episcopalian. 

The Presbyterian Church in Unadilla was organ- 
ized in 1823. Its first members were Uiiah Han- 
ford, Rhoda Hanford, Jesse R. Hovey, Mary Hovey, 
Holley Seeley, Garrett Monfort, Sarah Monfort, 
John Eells, Sophia Bottom, Daniel Castle, and Philo 
L. Phelps. For several years services were held in 
the school-house and in private dwellings. The 
building of a Church edifice was delayed until 1844, 
the year in which at Sand Hill the Baptist church 
was erected. 

Since the building of the Episcopal church thirty 
90 



OTHER VILLAGE CHURCHES. 

years had now gone by, in which fact we see the 
historic importance in early village annals of St. 
Matthew's. At Unadilla Centre, as early as 1830, 
a Methodist Church had been set up, but it was 
not until a quarter of a century afterward that a 
Methodist Church building was erected in Unadilla 
by a society destined to exert marked influence, 
and to-day existing in a fine state of vigor and use- 
fulness. 

The Baptist Church dates from 1S47. Judge 
Page gave the land on which the building stands, 
valued by him at two hundred dollars. Frederick 
A. Sands, William J. Hughston and Simeon Bid- 
well were among the other contributors. Many 
gifts were in small sums. Scores of persons gave 
twenty-five and fifty cents. Anything was accept- 
able. On the original subscription book may still 
be read items like these : " $3 in boots and shoes " ; 
"$10, one-half in cash, half in hats"; "$5 in 
boots and shoes " ; " $3 in a United States map " ; 
"2 dozen papers of tobacco"; and twenty-five 
cents in the form of " one bottle of Cholera Mor- 
bus Specific." 

Spafford records that in 1S24, Unadilla pos- 
sessed "a handsome toll bridge across the Susque- 
hanna, 250 feet long, with three arches well covered 
and painted, as ornamental to the village as it is 
useful." This bridge had been erected in 1817, 
the builder being Luther Cowles and one of the 
workmen Guido L. Bissell. It supplanted an older 
91 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

and inferior structure which had been partly com- 
pleted as early as 1804, and which stood a few 
feet further up the stream where remains of one of 
the piers were still visible a few years ago in clear 
water. The piers of the new bridge were origi- 
nally formed of plank boxes filled with stone. 
These proved inadequate in times of high water 
and projecting piers of stronger masonry were 
erected in their place. The bridge continued in use 
until 1893, when the present structure of iron was 
erected. It was owned by a compan\ T which had 
the privilege of raising money by issuing bank 
notes. 

The building of another bridge on a new site at 
Unadilla was probably influenced somewhat by 
the enterprise which was building up a settlement 
at Crookerville. It was also inspired by the grow- 
ing interests of the lower business centre of the 
village. On June 29, 1822, in the presence of Dan- 
iel Cone, Stephen Benton gave the Commissioners 
of Highways a quitclaim deed to a strip of land 
running "from the turnpike near Foster's Tavern* 
on the west side of Sherman Page's line south." 

This land was granted for a public highway and 
was to revert back to Stephen Benton or his heirs 
"in one year after the bridge which is contem- 
plated to be built across the river shall become 
impassable for teams and loads, unless a new 

*This was the tavern which Dr. Cone had erected on the present site of 
the Unadilla House. 

92 







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THE TWO BRIDGES. 

bridge shall be built, and that in good repair for 
passing with loads and teams." On the same day 
a similar deed to land one rod wide adjoining Mr. 
Benton's was given to Sherman Page in Daniel 
Cone's presence for similar uses and on the same 
conditions. Benjamin Saunders, W. D. Spencer 
and Eber Ferris, Commissioners of Highways, laid 
out this road "agreeable to the request of Gilbert 
Cone, Albert Benton and John Bissell, trustees for 
building the free bridge." This bridge remained 
free for ten years and then became a toll-bridge. 
The road was not opened earlier than 1823. A new 
iron bridge was erected on this site in the summer 
of 1894. 

In 1821, a handsome two-story building was 
erected as a school-house, including a classical 
school of about thirty scholars and a common 
district school. The land for a site had been 
granted by Robert Harper of Windsor in July, 
1820, the consideration being "one dollar and 
other divers good causes and considerations him 
thereunto moving." This edifice, on the site of the 
present home of R. K. Teller, continued in use as a 
school for about sixty-five years, when it was sold 
for a hundred dollars, moved to a street across the 
railroad track and converted into a dwelling. 



93 



VIII. 

PIONEERS IN TRIBUTARY 
NEIGHBORHOODS. 

1784-1823. 

The rapidity with which the lands in this valley 
were taken up, once they had been made accessible, 
is most striking. Not only was the site of the 
village put under cultivation before the century 
closed, but many tracts elsewhere, on the hills to 
the north and south and along the two rivers, 
Susquehanna and Unadilla. Of those pioneers this 
volume should contain some record. They became 
familiar figures in village streets. Here they found 
a market for their produce; here man}' of them 
attended Church; here was the bank; here lived 
their family physicians and their lawyers; here 
was the post office, and here were the dr}- goods 
and grocery stores. Some of these localities have 
since built up villages of their own, such as Sidney 
Centre ( or May wood ) and Wells Bridge ; but for 
three-quarters of a century Unadilla was the cen- 
tral village with which all their interests were 
closely identified. 

Across the river from the village in the Crooker- 
ville neighborhood, a settlement had been started 
94 



CROOKERVILLE. 

by Stephen Wood before the eighteenth century 
closed, and here was a sawmill. Mr. Wood's wife 
was a sister of William Gordon who afterwards 
came to live on the Nathaniel Wattles place. Mr. 
Gordon was the father of Samuel Gordon of Delhi 
who was stationed at Unadilla during the Civil 
War as Provost Marshall. The sawmill in Crook- 
erville had been built some years before 1800, when 
Guido L. Bissell charged Mr. Gordon "to two days 
on the mill, six shillings", "to repairing the saw- 
mill, 14 shillings", and in 1801, "to work on saw- 
mill, 6 shillings", and "to work on sawmill and 
gate 6 shillings." Soon afterwards a grist mill 
was erected. It was owned by a man named 
Bennett who sold it to Mr. Crook er, after whom 
the place got its name. 

Mr. Crooker gave a new start to the settlement 
by erecting a woolen mill in which yarn was spun, 
cloth woven and carpets made. For some of these 
carpets he found a market in New York. He 
erected seven houses around the mills, one for him- 
self, the others for his employes. He died in 1842, 
and his son Edmund continued the business, with 
Elisha Thompson, a brother of William J. Thomp- 
son, but in 1844, the property passed into the 
hands of Major Fellows who, in 1845, converted 
the woolen mill into a grist mill. 

Early among those who reached the hills north 
of the village were Peter Rogers, Abel DeForest and 
a man named Morefield. In 1799, Mr. Rogers's 
95 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

dwelling was described as an "old house." indi- 
cating that it had been built before the Revolution. 
Town records show that Mr. DeForest was living 
there as early as 1797. Other men who came to 
this region were Elijah Place and Rufus Fisk, as 
early as 1799, and James Maxwell, John Butler 
and Lysander Curtis, who arrived later. 

Abel DeForest was a member of Assembly in 
1810, 1813 and 1814. The DeForest name has 
been well preserved in numerous descendants. 
According to the census of 1890, there were fifty- 
eight persons of the name living in the town. Wil- 
liam DeForest for more than thirty years was a 
groceryman in the village. Over his counter, in ex- 
change for peanuts and oranges, were to pass the 
most of the pennies that came into the author's 
hands when a boy. 

Lysander Curtis outlived all his contempo- 
raries. When he died in December, 1890, his age 
was ninety-eight years, nine months and twenty 
days. For nearly sixty years he had lived on the 
same farm. He was born in Columbia County in 
1792 and came to this valley with his father when 
twelve years old. He served in the War of 1812, 
and in 1833 settled on 300 acres of unimproved 
land at the upper end of Rogers Hollow. Out of 
this land he made a valuable farm, which at the 
time of his death was still in his possession. Mr. 
Curtis had voted at every election save one since 
he became of age. 

96 



ROGERS HOLLOW AND UNADILLA CENTRE. 

Noah Gregory, whose son settled in that part of 
the town called Unadilla Centre, was a native of 
Norwalk, Connecticut, where he was born in 1796. 
He lived in Gilbertsville, and after him was named 
Gregor}^ Hill. His son, Ebenezer Gregory, in 1823 
married James Maxwell's daughter and moved to 
a farm where he built the stone house that still 
stands in Unadilla Centre. He reared four sons 
and four daughters who have contributed for more 
than one generation familiar figures to the social 
and business life of the village. 

One of his sons was Jared C. Gregor}' who died 
in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1891. He lived in Una- 
dilla for many years, reading law with Judge 
Noble, and practising it here until 1858 when he 
removed to Wisconsin, having been two years be- 
fore the Democratic candidate for Congress. In 
Wisconsin he had success as a lawyer, became a 
Regent of the Universit}' of the State and post- 
master of Madison under President Cleveland. 
His wife was Charlotte Camp, a sister of Mrs. 
Charles C. Noble. She is still living in Madison. 
The author had the pleasure of meeting her there 
in the summer of 1900, while securing material 
for "The Old New York Frontier" in the Library 
of the State Historical Society. He spent two 
hours in her home, and they passed as might one. 

Another son was Dr. Nelson B. Gregory, who in 
the last 3'ears of his life was a conspicuous figure 
in the village. In his j^outh he had learned dent- 
7 97 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

istry and went to France where he became a pio- 
neer American dentist. He had among his patients 
men of whom the world everywhere has heard, 
including Thiers. He returned to Unadilla about 
twenty years ago and devoted himself to farming 
and stock raising on the fertile island farm formed 
by the Susquehanna and the Binnekill. He died in 
1895. 

In 1804, Abel Holmes came from Conneticut to 
Morris, bringing with him a son Amos, then one 
year and a half old. In 1809 Mr. Holmes went to 
Unadilla Centre, built a log house and cleared up 
a farm, with his nearest neighbor living one mile 
away. He lived to be eighty-four }'ears old, and 
his son Amos died at* ninety-five. Amos learned to 
ride a bicycle when he was ninety-three. The last 
years of Amos's life were spent in the village and 
he distinctly remembered the place as he had seen 
it in boyhood. 

By 1820 many families were living along the old 
Butternut road, running north from the Noble and 
Ha\ r es store. Beginning at the north line of the 
town and coming south, the first farm was occu- 
pied by Richard Musson, who had settled there in 
1804. Then came in the order named, Daniel 
Adcock, Jehiel Clark, Captain A. Bushnell, a family 
on the Peter Coon farm, Simeon Church, L. Farns- 
worth and James Maxwell. This brings us to 
Unadilla Centre where Mr. Maxwell kept a hotel. 
South from this point the settlers were Mr. Lamb, 
98 



THE SAND HILL NEIGHBORHOOD. 

Mr. Carr, William Derrick, a colored man who had 
formerly been a slave owned by General Jacob 
Morris, another Mr. Carr, Jarvis Smith, John 
Haynes, who was a blacksmith, Joseph Smith, Mr. 
Allen, and finally Mr. Hemenway. This brought 
the traveler to the hill overlooking the village, at 
the base of which \a.y a group of buildings belong- 
ing to merchants, stock dealers, and farmers, 
gathered about the store and distillery of Noble 
and Hayes. * 

In the Sand Hill and Hampshire Hollow regions, 
the town road records show that lands had been 
taken up before the eighteenth century closed. 
Among the early names are Daniel Buckley, John 
Sisson, Samuel Merriman, Elisha Lathrop, Thomas 
Wilbur, and John Cranston, all of whom had ar- 
rived as early as 1796 when Abner Griffith and 
Samuel Betts were living on the river road south 
of those settlements. John Sisson came as early 
as 1790, living first on the river road and then re- 
moving to the neighborhood afterwards called 
Sisson Hill. Other early names are Eber Ferris, 
John Palmer, Aaron Sisson, Lee Palmer, Hezekiah 
and William Carr, Edward Smith, Harvey Potter, 
Bethel Lesure, Samuel Patterson, and Captain 
Seth Rowley. 

Captain Rowley had taken part in the siege of 
Fort Schu;»der in 1777, that historic event which, 
combined with the battle at Oriskany, precipitated 

* Robert Scott Mussonia the Unadilla Times in November, 1892, 

99 
[LofC. 



THE PIONEERS OF LNADILLA. 

the Border Wars of the American Revolution. 
Captain Rowley spent three weeks at Fort Schuy- 
ler. He died at the age of ninety-one. On the 
river road near the mouth of Sand Hill Creek set- 
tled Captain Elisha Saunders, who was a physician 
as well as a soldier. He was killed at the battle of 
Queenstown in the War of 1812, and left two sons, 
one of whom became a physician in Otego, while 
the other, B. G. W. Saunders, lived for mam r years 
in Unadilla. 

Benjamin Wheaton had settled in the eastern 
part of the town before 1796. He survived in that 
neighborhood as the traditional hero of many 
hunting tales, some of which are worthy of Baron 
Munchausen. One of them relates to a panther. 
Mr. Wheaton, after a long tramp through the 
woods, on sitting down to rest, fell asleep. When 
he awoke, he found himself covered with leaves 
and concluded that a panther had thus bestowed 
upon him the attentions received from other crea- 
tures by the celebrated Babes in the Woods. He 
believed however that the panther's attentions 
had been prompted by self interest, in that she ex- 
pected to return with her young and make a meal 
of him. Accordingly, he climbed a tree and when 
the big cat came back with her kittens, the mighty 
hunter slew all three. 

The condition of Hampshire Hollow, which was 
settled by seven families from New Hampshire, has 
been described by Sylvester Smith as it existed in 
100 



SIDNEY CENTRE. 

the early part of the century. * The heads of fami- 
lies and the number of their children were these: 
Parker Fletcher,, seven children; Whiting Bacon, 
(the father of Samuel D. Bacon of Unadilla), 
eleven; Peter Davis, six; Walter Winans, four; 
Gaius Spaulding, four ; Ephraim Smith, ten ; Abra- 
ham Post, ten ; John Cranston, ten ; Samuel Lamb, 
four; Levi Lathrop, twelve; Asa Lesure, eight; 
Ephraim Robbins, six; Theophilus Merriman, 
seven; William Chapin, seven; John Lesure, eight 
(Mr. Lesure was living in 1891 at the age of eighty- 
nine) ; Thomas J. Davis, three, and B. M. Gold- 
smith, three. Nearly all of these families in Mr. 
Smith's boyhood were still living in log houses. 

With the building of the road from the Ouleout 
over to Carr's Creek, in 1794, an important begin- 
ning was made in opening up the Sidney Centre 
neighborhood— a road little used now-a-days be- 
cause of the heavy grade, but it seems to have 
been the original means of approach to Sidney 
Centre. Settlers came in slowly. The first to ar- 
rive came before the road was open. Jacob Bid- 
well settled there in 1793 and found two or three 
families had preceded him, but they did not remain 
long. Mr. Bidwell built a house on the farm 
owned in recent years by Harper W. Dewey. His 
brother taught the first school on Carr's Creek and 
in 1798, at this wilderness home, was born a son 

* Letter to the Unadilla Times in June, 1891. 

101 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

who spent his old age in Unadilla village— Simeon 
Bidwell. 

At Smith Settlement homes were planted about 
the same time, the pioneer having been Samuel 
Smith. On theNiles farm the first settler was John 
Wellman who sold the place to Joseph Niles in 
1810. Mr. Niles came from Connecticut. He was 
drafted for the War of 1812 and for twenty-five 
dollars hired a man to go in his place. This man 
went to Sackett's Harbor under General Erastus 
Root of Delhi. Air. Niles's son Samuel lived on 
this farm all his life, I think. In 1816, David 
Baker, the father of Horace and William Baker, 
came to this neighborhood. 

Another early settler was Jonathan Burdick. 
His father had settled in Kortright in 1810. Jona- 
than came to Carr's Creek in 1836. Except for the 
Smith settlement, the country was still in large 
part a wilderness. Assisted by his wife Mr. Bur- 
dick rolled up a log house. His father had been 
present as one of the guard at the time Major An- 
dre' was taken from the old Dutch Church at Tap- 
pan to his place of execution, for complicity in the 
treason of Benedict Arnold. The father was also 
present at the surrender of Cornwallis. Another 
pioneer in the Sidney Centre neighborhood was 
Windsor Merithew. He came in 1835. The first 
school-house in this region was built in 1825 and 
was constructed of logs. 

In the paper mill district some of the first settle- 
102 



THE PAPER MILL REGION. 

ments in the town were made. Here stood the 
original village of Unadilla, a village of scattered 
farms, planted in 1772 and burned by the Ameri- 
can soldiers under Colonel William Butler in 1778, 
when it had become a settlement of Indians, Brit- 
ish Tories and runaway negroes who had driven 
out the original Scotch-Irish pioneers. To these 
lands came some of the first settlers who returned 
to the valley after the war, which was about 
1784. On the paper mill site, saw and grist mills 
had been built within a few years and around 
them was gathered a thriving settlement. The 
mills were owned by Abimileck Arnold. A carding 
mill and cloth dressing factory were also estab- 
lished here. Mr. Arnold arrived soon after the war 
closed and seems to have been here before the con- 
flict began. 

On the farm just below the paper mill site, where 
the Johnstons spent their first season, was made 
one of the settlements that belong to a time pre- 
vious to the war. Here now William Hanna, a 
Scotchman from Cherry Valley, made his home and 
here he long lived and kept a hotel. Mr. Haiina 
was possibly a relative of the Rev. William Hanna, 
who twenty years before had been pastor of the 
first Presbyterian Church established in Albany 
and had corresponded with Sir William Johnson, 
from which we may, perhaps, infer that the 
younger William Hanna had come into the valley 
before the war. The younger Hanna had served 
103 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

in the Revolution in the Third Regiment of Trjon 
County Militia. Witter and Hugh Johnston were 
in the same regiment. In this regiment David 
McMaster was a captain. 

Two Ouleout names that appear on the muster 
roll are Abraham Fuller who built the mill there 
probably before the war, and Abraham Hodges, 
while among other names are Daniel and David 
Ogden of Otego, and Henry Scramling and John 
VanDewerker of Oneonta. Jonathan Carley the 
pioneer of the family that still survives on the Ou- 
leout, had served in the Revolution and came into 
the country in 1796 from Duchess County. 

A sister of the Johnstons was the wife of Stephen 
Stoyles who settled on the farm where recently 
lived Norman D. Foster and whose daughter was 
married to Obel Nye. Mr. Stoyles had served in 
the Revolution and came into the valley in 1788. 
Descendants of Mr. Nye lived on this farm until it 
passed to Mr. Foster. Here for many years cider 
was made and to this mill and the rival manufac- 
tory at the Ryder farm on the Ouleout many boys 
from the village years ago were accustomed in the 
autumn to make their pilgrimages. With delight 
the author recalls that among these boys he was 
often one. 

Captain David McMaster came with the Johns- 
tons. He lived across the way from the Ephraim 
Smith house. C. Frasier settled on the A. N. Bene- 
dict farm and David Bigelow on the Evans place, 
104 



COL. DAVID HOUGH. 

not far from the site of the old Indian Monument, 
all trace of which I believe has now disappeared. 
As early as 1796 Moses Hovey had settled in this 
neighborhood— I believe on the Sylvester Arms 
place. 

To the Luther farm early came back one of the 
Sliters of the Revolution and then Phineas Ben- 
nett who was here at the beginning of the century, 
or before. Elisha Luther, a Revolutionary pen- 
sioner, came from Clarendon, Vermont, in 1825, 
and bought the farm from a family named Sher- 
wood. Mr. Sherwood's daughter was the wife of 
Moses Foster whose coming was contemporary 
with Mr. Luther's. Mr. Foster left behind num- 
erous descendants. 

Other daughters of Mr. Sherwood by another 
wife were those who became the three wives of 
Colonel David Hough, owner of the farm on which 
stands a brick house. One of these daughters 
when married to Colonel Hough was already the 
widow of a man named Lord. Another was the 
widow of Dr. Slade, the father of Chauncey Slade, 
a citizen of the village for many years. Colonel 
Hough bought his farm from a family named Hurd 
who were relatives of the Jewell family of Guil- 
ford. On this farm bricks were made and many 
thousands of them were used for chimneys in Una- 
dilla village. Alvin Woodworth lived in this neigh- 
borhood early in the century and his son Alvin 
Clarke Woodworth, who died in 1818, was the 
105 



THE PIONEERS OE UNADILLA. 

first person buried in the cemetery near the home 
of Norman D. Foster. Here Chaunce}' Slade lies 
buried. 

With Elisha Luther came his son, Martin B. Lu- 
ther, whose death in the summer of 1890 removed 
a citizen of much personal worth and superior in- 
tellectual endowments. He had been supervisor in 
1841 and 1842 and was a justice of the peace for 
several terms. He was an authority on titles in 
the Wallace and Upton patents and was a surveyor 
of long experience. He was prominent in Ma- 
sonry. He joined to wide reading a clear and large 
understanding. Mr. Rogers * did not exaggerate in 
describing him as " a man of great capacity, much 
modesty, an honored citizen, a good farmer, and a 
gentleman of unquestioned honor." 

On the Unadilla river a large family of the name 
of Spencer settled,— so large indeed that a part of 
that neighborhood was known as ' ' Spencer Street. ' ' 
The father was Jonathan Spencer and one of the 
sons was Orange Spencer. These men appear to 
ha\'e first settled here before the Revolution. Fol- 
lowing them were .several families to whom they 
were related by marriage, sisters of Jonathan be- 
ing the wives of Jeremiah Birch, Jonathan Stark 
and Jeremiah Thornton. 

Mr. Birch was the grandfather of Albert G. 

* Perry P. Rogers, from whom much information regarding this neigb- 
fcoihood was obtained by the author many years ago. 

106 



•♦SPENCER STREET." 

Birch. * Jeremiah Birch came soon after the Spen- 
cers and was from the same locality in Montgom- 
ery County. He as well as the Spencers had served 
in the Revolution in the Third Regiment of Tryon 
County Militia and probably was at Oriskany. 
Mr. Stark made his home on the Horace Phelps 
place and died about sixty-five years ago. Another 
relative of Jonathan Spencer was Jalleal Billings, 
who was a son of one of his sisters. He settled 
near the bridge that now crosses to Shaver's Cor- 
ners. Mr. Billings's mother had for her second 
husband Enos Yale, who settled in that valley 
several years before the eighteenth century closed. 
Mr. Yale was prominent in town affairs. 

To this same valley, near the mouth of the river, 
some time afterwards came another family named 
Spencer. Their ancestor, Amos Spencer, originally 
was from Connecticut and had served in the Revo- 
lution. He had settled in the town of Maryland, 
Otsego Co. On the Unadilla river settled two of 
his family, Simeon and Porter, who afterwards 
came to the village, leaving descendants, some of 
whom are still living there. 

Samuel Rogers, the ancestor of P. P. Rogers, 
came to Unadilla before 1795. Four children and 
his wife came with him. They settled first on the 
Gates place above the Salmon G. Cone farm; but 

* Mr. Birch died at his home north of the village in January. 1892. He 
was a stone mason and for several years was employed on the old Croton 
Aqueduct in New York city and on the Chenango Canal. He was one of 
the last survivors in this valley of those who had followed the river in the 
old rafting days. 

107 



THE PIONEERS OE UNADILLA. 

went afterwards to the Unadilla river. Mr. Rogers 
was a native of North Bolton, Connecticut, where 
he was born in 1764, and his wife a native of the 
neighboring town of East Windsor. He died in 
1829. Mr. Rogers was one of those shoemakers 
who have been remarkable for other things than 
their trade. He worked at that trade for the most 
of his life, but had great love of books and was 
possessed of much knowledge in several directions. 
Like Sluman Wattles, he was a typical pioneer of 
the best class, a man who could do mam- things 
and do them well. He was a practical surveyor 
and knew enough medicine to have practised it. 
He had learned some law, and after he was fifty- 
five years old acquired a good reading knowledge 
of the Latin language. Judge McMaster, who 
knew him well, said: "There was no man in this 
society in his time of so much intellectual culture 
as Mr. Rogers except the minister, and not always 
excepting him. " 

Mr. Rogers's son Jabez was long a resident of 
the village, as was his grandson, Perry P. Rogers, 
whose later life was spent in Binghamton where he 
died in 1894-, to the regret of every person who had 
known him. He had a most intimate knowledge 
of the early settlers of this part of the valley. He 
was born oh the Unadilla river, but in boyhood 
went to Steuben Count}^ and thence to Buffalo, 
where he was admitted to the bar. He came to 
this village in 1857 and practised law here until 
108 



PERRY P. ROGERS. 

1871, when he went to Binghamton and there 
spent the remainder of his days. He lies buried in 
St. Matthew's churchyard. My school mate, his 
son Joseph, grew up in this village, and in the 
churchyard sleeps. 

At the mouth of the Unadilla river grist and saw 
mills were owned at the beginning of the century, 
if not earlier, by a man named Nickerson. Sixty 
or more years ago they had passed into the hands 
of Harry Hoffman. The farm where Delos Curtis 
lives was occupied by John Abbey, the Bryan farm 
by Silas Scott. Seth Scott is an early name con- 
nected with the Thomas Monroe farm, and another 
name connected with it is Phineas Reed, who built 
the stone house in 1832. On a portion of this farm 
lived Major David Francis, who came into the 
country as early as 1790. His house stood near 
the creek that crosses the highway where the road 
turns off to East Guilford. Older residents well re- 
membered many amusing stories of this man. 

Seth Scott and his brother Silas had arrived as 
early as 1796. Seth's wife was Amy Birch, an aunt 
of Albert G. Birch. Silas Scott, William D. Mudge, 
father of the late William L. Mudge of Bingham- 
ton, and Jesse Skinner all lived in this neighbor- 
hood and married sisters named Lee, daughters of 
Philemon Lee. Of this family of Scott was 
"Granther" Scott, who kept the first toll bridge at 
Wattles's Ferry. Henry Dayton, who surveyed 
many of the first town roads, lived where Julius 
109 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

Utter more recently lived. Jerome Bates was an^ 
other early resident on the Unadilla river. He was 
a carpenter and with the builder Bottom erected 
the house on the Bund}- farm. Here also settled 
Zachariah C. Curtis who died in 1891 in his ninety- 
second year. His parents were from Stratford, 
Connecticut, and had settled in Madison County. 
About 1800, he was born. Mr. Curtis settled on 
the Unadilla river in 1823, where he was a pioneer 
in the cultivation of hops. For many years his 
yard was the only one in the southern part of the 
county. Mr. Curtis was the father of J. Delos 
Curtis. 



110 



IX. 

MAIN AND MILL STREET 
MEN. 

1815--1840. 

Early in the eighteenth century the village had 
become divided in its business interests, two trade 
centers having been created. Sharp rivalry had 
well begun before the new century was ten years 
old. As time went on, this rivalry deepened and 
spread until it permeated the entire community. 
Indeed, for three generations it formed a pivot 
around which many interests revolved. 

At the beginning of the settlement, the indica- 
tions were that the center would be in the neigh- 
borhood of what is now Main and Martin Brook 
Streets, where the first goods were sold. The de- 
sire to be as near as possible to the terminus of the 
Catskill Turnpike, and directly accessible to the 
river from their store, led Noble aud Haj'es to begin 
their enterprise at the extreme eastern end of the 
village. But the interests which centered at that 
distant point were afterwards shifted to Main and 
Mill Street, largely because new enterprises had 
grown up there. Here was found a site more nearly 
central; here were the thriving mills of Joel Bragg; 
111 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

here Roswell Wright in 1815 built his store; nearby 
was Bragg's Hotel; here was St. Matthew's 
Church ; and here was established the post office. 

Meanwhile, had occurred the opening of the store 
of Stephen Benton at Main and Clifton Streets, 
and the building of the hotel by Dr. Cone diagonally 
across the way. Here therefore was now another 
center. Thus had been cast the die from which so 
much of the subsequent history of the village was 
to take its rise — two rival centers of trade. Colo- 
nel North has shown with fullness, in a paper re- 
printed in a later chapter, what had been the 
growth of the two ends by 1828. Each in some 
respects had advantages. If the eastern, or upper, 
end had a young ladies' private school, the western 
end had two physicians as against the other's one. 
Up-town had the only church building and the 
grist and saw mill ; but down-town had the full- 
ing mill and the tannery. Each had a hotel. 
Wagons were made down-town and clocks and 
watches were there repaired, but hats were made 
up-town and so were coats and trousers. In one 
respect the honors were notably easy. Each had 
its own distillery ; but this fact may have increased 
rather than allayed the disputatious tendencies. 

The opening of the two stores of Stephen Benton 
and Roswell Wright was almost simultaneous. 
Mr. AVright at the beginning did business alone, 
but soon had as partner Moses G. Benjamin. Mr. 
Wright had come from Wethersfield, Connecticut, 
112 



ARNOLD B. WATSON. 

where he was born in 1785, and had previously 
vStarted in business in Catskill. After remaining his 
partner in Unadilla for several years, Mr. Benja- 
min went to Bainbridge. Their store stood on the 
southeast corner of Main and Mill streets, and 
among those who helped to build it was Guido L. 
Bissell. Standing in the centre of the village, it 
supplanted for its immediate area the store for- 
merly conducted by Solomon Martin and Gurdon 
Huntington, General Martin having died in 1816 
and Dr. Huntington having gone to Cairo in 1813. 
It continued for a long period of years to be the 
up-to wn centre of village business life. Mr. Wright 
was postmaster for a number of years and he had 
in his employ, or as partners, at one time and 
another, young men who were to become notable 
factors in the future of the village. More than one 
was to remain a resident for sixt}^ years. 

Arnold B. Watson, one of the number, was a 
native of Albany County, and came to the village 
in 1821 to take charge of a classical school in the 
upper story of the building that long stood on the 
site of R. K. Teller's residence. He was then 
twenty-three years old. Two and a half years 
later he entered Roswell Wright's store and in a 
short time was a partner, the firm becoming 
Wright and Watson. Later it was Wright, Wat- 
son and Company, Abiel D. Williams having joined 
the firm. 
Mr. Wright died in 1832 and Mr. Watson went 
'• 113 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

into business on his own account in the brick store 
which had been erected across the street in 1832, 
on the site of the Masonic Hall. The Masonic Hall 
was then ten years old. It had been built by Lord 
and Bottom and was now removed eastward to 
the site of the present beautiful residence after- 
wards built by Mr. Watson. Here Mr. Watson 
continued to do business for many years, and here 
he established the Unadilla Bank, which for more 
than twenty years was perhaps the most widely 
known bank, in this part of the valle}^. Clark I. 
Hayes became his partner, and b\ r this firm the ex- 
tensive operations of Noble and Hayes were revived 
and long continued. 

Mr. Watson's activities outside his firm extended 
in many directions. He became active in the or- 
ganization and building of the Albany and Sus- 
quehanna railroad and his name was one of those 
proposed for president. Of St. Matthew's Church 
he was senior warden and treasurer for thirty 
years. To him more than to any other one person 
was the village indebted for the old Academy. He 
not only had the largest amount of stock but in 
every possible way promoted its welfare after- 
wards, his interest never ceasing until his death. 

Mr. Watson had twenty-two shares of the Acad- 
emy stock; A. D. Williams had sixteen; L. B. 
Woodruff, twelve ; Erastus Kingsley, thirteen ; Mrs. 
Charles C.Noble, eight; C. I. Hayes, eight; the 
estate of Isaac Hayes, twelve ; Mrs. Isaac Hayes, 
114 



THE UNADILLA ACADEMY. 

seven; Joel Bragg, five; and W. J. Thompson, 
two. An effort was made to secure for the Academy 
the land known as the Harper lot, which faced 
Main Street opposite the present Sands and Arnold 
residences. Subscriptions were solicited, but dis- 
putes arose, ending in the purchase of the present 
site from Joel Bragg, land which was then an 
orchard. 

The absence of down-town names from the list of 
stockholders would indicate that down-town men 
had been disappointed in the selection of the site, 
the stock being entirely taken by men living up- 
town. The building was erected by Mr. Thomp- 
son in 1851. It continued in use until 1894, when 
the present fine structure of brick was erected and 
the old building sold and taken down, the Academy 
site and its endowment fund being united with the 
new school. 

Mr. Watson, in 1832, built for his residence the 
brick structure which now forms part of Bishop's 
Hotel. Erastus Kingsley afterwards acquired this 
property and enlarged it for hotel purposes. Later 
on Mr. Watson erected the residence which still 
stands east of the brick store. Mr. Thompson 
built it for him. This involved the second removal 
of the Masonic Hall, which was taken to its present 
site where with its enlargements it stands as the 
summer home of Lester T. Hubbell. Mr. Thomp- 
son found a model for Mr. Watson's new house 
near Utica, or at least some suggestions for it ; but 
115 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

otherwise he was the architect as well as the 
builder of that noble village residence. 

Mr. Watson's first wife was Susan Emily, daugh- 
ter of Isaac Hayes. Their children were Henry M., 
now of Buffalo; Julia N., who died in her youth; 
Sarah A., who was married to the Rev. E. Folsom 
Baker; Susan H., the wife of Frederick T. Sherman 
of Brooklyn, and William H. of Buffalo. In 1865 
Mr. Watson married Isaac Hayes's daughter Au- 
gusta, who survived him until December 20th, 
1891, when at the age of seventy-three she died in 
the house her father had built in 1804. In this 
house she had been born. In St. Matthew's Church 
she was baptised; she remained all her life a 
member of it and in its churchyard she lies buried. 

Mrs. Watson's brother, Clark I. Hayes, at the 
age of seventy, followed her to this last resting 
place a little more than a year afterwards. Mr. 
Hayes during his business career was universally 
popular throughout a large territory. Mr. Rogers, 
whose acquaintance with him was intimate, has 
described him as "a gentleman by instinct, cour- 
teous, pleasant, affable." Amid many changes 
of fortune he maintained through life a placid,, 
hospitable and manly relation towards societj^and 
those who compose it. Born as he had been to 
rural affluence and reared in refined surroundings, 
he personally seemed never altered by trials which 
might have been sufficient to break the spirit of 
men trained in sterner schools. Under his influence, 
116 



CLARK I. HAYES. 

probably more than that of any other man in the 
community, was due the elevation of the standard 
of farm stock in this part of the valley. 

Like his sister Mr. Hayes was born in the house 
in which he died. Her home for some years was 
elsewhere, but Mr. Hayes spent all his days in this 
dwelling, which was part of his inheritance. Few 
lives have embraced so long a period of village 
history as these two. When this brother and sister 
first saw the light scarcely more than twenty 
houses were standing; the turnpike was still the 
main highway from the Hudson to this part of the 
state ; lumbering was the chief industry and pro- 
duce arks were making voyages down the Susque- 
hanna. These lives were interesting in many other 
ways, ways more personal, for all who knew and 
understood this man of staid courtesy and sweet 
spirit, this woman of bright and gentle life, whose 
careers closed in the very place where they began. 

Another year brought to this churchyard an- 
other child of Isaac Hayes, his son Frederick T., of 
whose boyhood more than one pleasing glimpse is 
given in Henry Noble's diary, of which extracts 
will be printed in a later chapter. Frederick Hayes 
spent his business life in a New York bank of which 
he was an officer, but he often came back to Una- 
dilla, pleased once more to walk among the scenes 
of his youth. 

In Erastus Kingsley was seen perhaps the most 
popular landlord which this valley ever knew. He 
117 



IKE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

was a native of Franklin where he was born in 
1800, his father being Bradford Kingsley. On com- 
ing to Unadilla, he was employed by Daniel and 
Gilbert Cone. For a short time he kept the hotel at 
Main and Bridge Streets. A sister of his was the 
first wife of Marvin C. Allen and the mother of 
Chester K. Allen. Mr. Allen for some time lived in 
the Bradford Kingsley house and later on bought a 
house then standing on the corner of Main and Wal- 
nut Streets, where he died. For his second wife he 
married Caroline Gregor}'. Mr. Kingsley died in 
1865. His hotel at Main and Depot Streets was the 
headquarters in stage-coaching times and in the 
rear of it travelling circuses usually fixed their tents. 
Around this village corner gather many other 
memories. After Mr. Watson perhaps comes Col- 
onel Williams, at least in point of duration of as- 
sociations. He was a native of Westford, Otsego 
County and a son of Israel Williams. He be- 
gan life in Unadilla as a clerk in Wright's store and 
afterwards was a partner. In 1827 he removed to 
Honesdale, Pennsylvania, where with his wife's 
brother, Thomas Hayes, he was engaged in trade 
for ten years. He then returned to Unadilla and 
resumed business on the old site, Mr. Wright hav- 
ing died. Mr. Wright's house became Colonel 
Williams's home. He was elected supervisor in 
1855 and died in 1871 at the age of sixty-nine. 
Long after his death his son Thomas and his 
daughter Elizabeth remained familiar and pathetic 
118 



DR. JOHN COLWELL. 

figures amid the scenes of their father's life, which 
had been active and honorable in youth and prime 
but which closed in misfortune. Thomas Williams 
died in Cooperstown in 1890, and was buried in 
the churchyard here at his father's side. 

Contemporary with these names is the name of 
John Colwell. Dr. Colwell was a bachelor, and a 
bachelor he died. He was born in Richfield in 1794. 
An authentic story of his youth relates to his dis- 
like of school. Found missing one day, he was 
long searched for in vain until at last discovered by 
his mother half way down a well. Being urged to 
emerge from his cool retreat, he refused to do so 
unless assured that he would be neither punished 
nor made to go to school. Dr. Colwell read medi- 
cine in Cherry Valley with the elder Dr. White and 
settled in Unadilla as early as 1820. Here he re- 
mained until his death, widely known and always 
beloved. His office still stands on Mill Street just 
below the blacksmith shop. He boarded for many 
years at Kingsley's hotel and previously had lived 
at Bragg's hotel. 

Mr. Kingsley was tolerant of Dr. Colwell's ec- 
centricities in money matters. The doctor never 
kept any book accounts, seldom made collections 
and infrequent^ made payments. Mr. Kingsley in 
consequence acquired a habit of collecting some of 
the doctor's bills himself, and thus took care of his 
own claims; it might now be money that he col- 
lected, or it might be a " side of beef." This simple 
119 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

method of paying two debts by one transaction 
seemed to accord admirably with the doctor's 
liking for simple methods in finance. He was su- 
pervisor in 1845 and 1846 and died in 1868 at the 
home of Dr. Joseph Sweet. He was laid away in 
St. Matthew's churchyard. 

Dr. Colwell was an old schoolmate of Levi 
Beardsley, the author of the "Reminiscences." 
Contemporary with him in Unadilla was Henry 
Ogden, whom Beardsley describes as "a fine, tal- 
ented fellow, but amazingly fond of hunting and 
fishing and a most keen sportsman." Mr. Ogden 
was from Catskill. He had four sons and two 
daughters, the eldest son being a graduate of West 
Point, who died a brevet-major in the regular 
arm}-, receiving his rank for meritorious conduct. 
He served in the Black Hawk war of 1832 and in 
the Florida wars of 1837-38 and 1840-42. He 
died at Fort Reilly, Kansas, in 1845, and lies 
buried in the churchyard here with his father and 
mother. Henry Ogden's two other sons removed 
to California. Mr. Ogden was a lawyer and his 
office building still exists as part of the home of 
William H. Sewell on Watson Street. His house oc- 
cupied the site of the church rectory and was built 
as early as 1815. It now occupies a new site on 
Martin Brook Street. 

Another name permanently connected with this 
village corner is that of Levi Bennett Woodruff. 
Mr. Woodruff was a native of Hartford County, 
120 



THE WOODRUFF BROTHERS. 

Connecticut, whence he went with his father, Joel 
Woodruff, to Meredith, in Delaware County, when 
ten years old. In coming to TJnadilla he was the 
forerunner among four brothers, one of whom, 
Lloyd L. Woodruff, is still living here. Joel Wood- 
ruff spent his last years in the old house on the 
turnpike just above the Foster Thompson farm, an 
ancient dwelling with an old sweep well and once 
owned by Ira Spaulding. A portion of this struc- 
ture had formerly been used as a schoolhouse on 
another site. 

L. B. Woodruff came to TJnadilla in 1829 in com- 
pany with Edwin J. Smith, who also was from 
Meredith. The two engaged in blacksmithing near 
the present stone shop and for many years con- 
ducted a prosperous business. Blacksmithing had 
previously been carried on in the same place by 
Turner McCall and Charles Wood. Mr. Woodruff 
in 1835 or 1836 built the stone shop still standing 
and later on the spacious dwelling on the Main 
Street corner. Retiring from the shop, he engaged 
in trade in a store near his house, and during the 
railroad building years conducted a large business. 
He died in 1879. 

Mr. Woodruff was followed in 1835 by his 
brother, Henrj- S. Woodruff, who survived him 
several years. He also was a blacksmith, but he 
abandoned that calling from ill health and for a 
long term of years was proprietor of the stage 
line from TJnadilla over the old Turnpike to Delhi, 
121 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

by way of Meredith Square. He had exceptional 
eminence for familiarity with that road. He was 
born upon it in the town of Meredith and had trav- 
elled over its western end more times than any one 
else living in his day. When he died the buildings 
on his premises were found stored full of many cu- 
rious relics of the stage business, from the smaller 
hardware of sleighs and harnesses, to worn-out 
whips and ancient buffalo robes, from two-horse 
vehicles to an old-time covered sleigh that marked 
in signal manner the passing away of an inter- 
esting era. 

The year 1841 brought to the village the third 
of these brothers, Lloyd L. Woodruff, who en- 
gaged in trade as a merchant tailor and then as a 
general dry goods merchant, builder, &c, with his 
brother-in-law, Milo B. Gregory, in the up-town 
brick store. John Woodruff, the fourth brother, 
spent some j^ears as a clerk in the old brick store 
when a young man, but finally removed to Delhi 
where he became an eminent citizen and merchant. 

More than sixty years ago, when the Masonic 
Hall stood on its original site, one of its occupants 
was Seleck H. Fancher, whose sudden death from 
heart failure in March, 1891, startled the com- 
munity. He was found in his garden about eight 
o'clock in the morning with life extinct. He was a 
native of Connecticut and died at eighty-two years 
of age. Until the hour of his death, his life had 
been an active one. Several generations of boys 
122 



SELECK H. FANCHER. 

and girls will long preserve the memory of this 
open-minded man, this kind-hearted friend of theirs. 
He was a shoemaker and like Samuel Rogers was 
wise in many things besides his craft. A building 
that will long be associated with his activities is 
the octagon house built by him and which was his 
home for more than twenty j^ears. Mr. Fancher 
was himself as many-sided as the house he dwelt 
in. His mind had as man}*- windows open to the 
sun. 



123 



X. 

TWO MEN OF NOTE. 
1828--1835. 

At the junction of Main and Mill Streets two 
other men, destined to notable distinction in village 
annals, began their careers. Each had been born 
in another place, each came to Unadilla as a young 
man, each spent here the most of his remaining 
da} r s, and here finally each was to pass away and 
be buried in the old churchyard, the one fifty-one 
years afterwards, the other sixty-six — Frederick A. 
Sands and Samuel North. 

Mr. Sands, as early as 1835, was a clerk in the 
Wright store. He had come to the village from 
Franklin and was a son of Judge Obadiah Sands, 
a native of Sands Point on Long Island, descended 
from Captain James Sands*, an Englishman, who 
came to this country about 1642, landing at 
Plymouth. Capt. Sands had been born at Read- 
ing, England in 1622. 

Benjamin Sands of Sands Point married Mary 
Jackson, and Obadiah Sands, the father of Fred- 

* The name in England was originally written Sandys and is supposed 
to have been derived from a place in the Isle of Wight called Sande, 
Leaving Plymouth, Capt. Sands lived for a time in Taunton and then 
joined sixteen other persons in purchasing land on Block Island, where he 

124 



JUDGE OBADIAH SANDS. 

erick A. Sands, was their son. Leaving Sands 
Point in May 1795, when in his twenty-first year, 
Obadiah, fifteen days later arrived at Cookoze,now 
Deposit, then a large centre of the lumber industry. 
He had with him as cook a colored boy who was a 
slave. Mr. Sands engaged actively in lumbering 
and dealt in real estate, following these pursuits at 
Cookoze until 1802, when he settled in Delhi, 
remaining there three years. He then removed to 
a place in Sidney, about three miles below Franklin 
village on the turnpike, and in the same year was 
married to Elizabeth Teed of Somers in West- 
chester County. In 1811 he removed to Jericho*, 
afterwards Bainbridge Village, where he engaged 
largely in the purchase and sale of real estate. 

Mr. Sands afterwards purchased a tract of land 
in Franklin, one mile east of the village, and in 
1818 went there to live. On this farm Abel Buell 
of Lebanon, Connecticut, had settled in 1790, or 
earlier, and thus was near his old Connecticut 
neighbor, Sluman Wattles. Franklin thenceforth 
until 1840 continued to be Judge Sands's home. 
For a short time afterwards he lived in Meredith 
and in 1845 went to Oxford where he died in 1858. 
He was buried on the farm in Franklin, but his re- 
lived until he died. During King Philips's War he built a stone house of 
which use was made as a defense against the Indians. Ihe place was 
twice plundered by the enemy. Three of his sons removed to the north 
shore of Long Island, purchasing a tract of land at the place now called 
Sands Point. 

• The name Jericho came from the Vermont town of that name twelve 
miles east of Burlington and was bestowed upon the place by Vermont 
settlers. 

125 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

mains were afterwards brought to Unadilla and 
now rest in the churchyard. He had six sons and 
three daughters. All but three of them survived 
him. The survivors were Dr. William G. Sands of 
Oxford, Jerome B., of Bainbridge, Marcellus, Dr. A. 
Jackson, who lived many years in Unadilla, Fred- 
erick A., and Elizabeth E., who became the wife of 
Joshua C. Sanders and is still living in New York. 

Frederick A. Sands was born in Bainbridge 
February 19th, 1812. Following his employment 
as a clerk in the Wright store, Mr. Sands engaged 
in business first with Christopher D. Fellows, 
under the name of Fellows and Sands, and next 
with Mr. Watson as Watson and Sands. He then 
removed to Oxford where he was acth-e in busi- 
ness with his brother-in-law, James W. Clark, along 
with whom and an old personal friend, Henry L. 
Miller, and others, he became interested in the 
First National Bank of that place, an institution 
that has had a prominent and successful career. 
Mr. Miller and he were lifelong friends. They were 
buried at the same hour and on the same daj r in 
1886. 

On the death of his father in 1868, Mr. Sands, 
who was executor and trustee of the estate, aban- 
doned his mercantile pursuits and devoted him- 
self to the affairs of the estate, which was a 
large one for that period. In his management of 
this property the necessity never arose for a law- 
suit. He possessed what Matthew Arnold called 
126 



FREDERICK A. SANDS. 

14 sweet reasonableness." When he died, it was 
said of him that "few men have done so much busi- 
ness with so little litigation." He was familiar 
with real estate titles in the neighborhood where 
he lived, and his papers have been described as 
"models of neatness and brevity and alwa3'S as 
correct as care and labor could make them. " With 
this scrupulous exactness went also a fine integrity. 
In politics Mr. Sands was a democrat, though he 
had small liking for the profession of politics. Offi- 
cial place he never sought. Mere office could scarce- 
ly have added anything to the esteem in which for 
two generations he here was held. 

Mr. Sands's first wife was Maria, daughter of 
Sherman Page. Two years after the marriage she 
died. In January 1841 he married Clarissa A., 
sister of the late Henry R. Mygatt of Oxford, who 
survived him only a few months. Mr. Sands had 
dwelt in both of the stone houses in the centre of 
the village, having built the western one and en- 
larged the other, which was his home for more than 
fort}- years. Between these ancient dwellings his 
son, J. Kred. Sands, in later 3^ears erected a beauti- 
ful modern home, and far to the rear of them, on 
an elevated plateau where agricultural fairs were 
annually held long ago, opened up streets and 
erected a number of houses. 

The story of this Main and Mill Street centre, of 
the Academy and the old brick store, connects 
itself closely with the life of another citizen of the 
127 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

village who was Mr. Sands's son-in-law. In the 
Academy building Frank B. Arnold's life in the 
village had its beginning. In the brick store he 
had his office and there he died. He lived in Una- 
dilla more than twenty years, and first came to 
take charge of the Academy. Dr. Odell and Mr. 
Thompson were the trustees who engaged him. 
He was from Gilbertsville, where he had just been 
graduated from the school, and now wished to 
teach in order to help himself through Hamilton 
College. Under Mr. Arnold the Academy became 
very prosperous, and never was teacher more 
popular with students. A memorial of his career 
may be seen in the trees that still stand near the 
side-walk in those school grounds. They were 
planted by the hands of Mr. Arnold and his pupils. 

Having read law and been admitted to practice, 
Mr. Arnold soon removed to Nebraska, but he 
came back in a few years and thenceforth always 
lived in the village. Although a Republican, he 
was several times elected supervisor in this Demo- 
cratic town by majorities as large as were ever 
given to any candidate. In 1885 and 1886 he was 
elected to the Assembly and in 1887-1888 served 
in the Senate. He became the Republican candidate 
for Congress in 1S90, but was defeated by a small 
majorhry. His health was seriously undermined at 
this time, and on December 11th he died in his of- 
fice at Alain and Depot Streets. 

Mr. Arnold made a distinct mark in the Legis- 
128 



FRANK B. ARNOLD. 

lature and became known throughout the State. 
He had many attractive personal qualities, with 
tastes quite apart from those which the law and 
politics fostered. He had read extensively in gen- 
eral literature and had collected many books. His 
law library was the one which formerly belonged 
to Daniel S. Dickinson. Mr. Arnold was born in 
Ireland and came to this country when a child. 
His father settled in East Hartford, Connecticut, 
where some years later the boy was seen by Major 
C. P. Root of Butternuts, and under his influence 
made his home in Butternuts. 

On this corner in Roswell Wright's store the 
business life of Samuel North in Unadilla was be- 
gun. His age was fourteen when he arrived in 
May, 1828, remaining in the store until he was 
twenty-one. The history of his family goes back 
to pioneer days in the valley of the Delaware. The 
Norths are of Long Island origin and of English 
ancestr}^. At Newtown the line comes down from 
Thomas to Benjamin and then to Robert, who in 
1784, with twenty other persons, mostly from 
Long Island, set out for what is now the village of 
Walton by crossing the wilderness from Kingston 
to the Delaware. With Robert North came his wife 
and an infant son named Benjamin who was the 
father of Colonel North. Mrs. North for the last 
portion of this journey rode on horseback with 
her infant in her arms and with a bed and pieces of 
furniture fastened on the horse behind her. 

9 129 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

The owner of the Walton patent was William 
Walton, a man of much note and affluence in New 
York at that time. He had offered to give a tract 
of land in his patent to the first male child born 
there on condition that the child should bear his 
name. The first child thus born was a son of Rob- 
ert North. Mrs. North had wished to call him 
Samuel, and, in spite of the offer, the name Samuel 
was adopted. This boy went to Albany as a clerk 
in the Assembly, and afterwards became a lawyer, 
but died in early life. Long after this event Sam- 
uel's brother Benjamin became the father of a son, 
in whom was revived the name of Samuel. This 
was Colonel North, who for many years was prob- 
ably the most distinguished citizen of the village. 

After leaving Unadilla when he became of age, 
Colonel North pursued his mercantile calling for a 
time in New York. Returning to Walton he be- 
came colonel of a regiment of Hamden and Wal- 
ton militia which was called out during the Anti- 
rent difficulties. He once more settled in Unadilla 
and in 1849 was elected County Clerk. In 1853 
he was made principal clerk in the appointment 
division of the General Post Office Department in 
Washington, and soon afterwards was made spec- 
ial agent of the department for a portion of New 
York and New England. He was a delegate to the 
Charleston convention of 1860 and voted for Ste- 
phen A. Douglass. By this act he incurred the 
displeasure of President Buchanan and lost his 
130 



COL. SAMUEL NORTH. 

position. Returning to Unadilla he engaged in the 
hardware business. While acting as one of the fif- 
teen special agents of the Post Office Department 
he had been rated as No. 1 as to the value of his 



*In 1863, Governor Seymour appointed Colonel Noith to rep- 
resent the State in Washington in matters affecting soldiers who 
were sick and wounded in hospitals. While holding this place 
in 1864, during an exciting Presidential campaign, he was ac- 
cused of defrauding soldiers of their votes. At the trial he was 
completely vindicated. Horace Greeley in the Tribune de- 
clared that this was " positive and unconditional." On his re- 
turn home, a reception and dinner were given to him by citi- 
zens of the village and in Albany similar honors were bestowed 
upon him by Judge Amasa J. Parker. His name was promi- 
nently mentioned by Democratic leaders as the candidate for 
Governor at the next election and he was much urged to accept 
it, but he positively declined to do so, and when offered the 
Comptrollership declined that also. 

Colonel North was long in association with the leaders of the 
Democratic party in this state, being at one time Chairman of 
the Executive Committee. He came into close relations with 
Erastus Coining, Dean Richmond, Horatio Seymour, Sanford 
E. Church, Allen C. Beach, and John T. Hoffman. The party 
leaders often visited Unadilla to consult him, and on one memor- 
able occasion Governor Seymour delivered a speech here which 
attracted several thousand people. His last official place was 
that of Canal Appraiser to which Governor Hoffman appointed 
him in 1870. He became president of the Board. 

For nearly twenty years Colonel North was Chairman of the 
Board of Trustees of Unadilla Academy and secured for it the 
endowment fund of $10,000. He built a reservoir on Kilkenny 
Hill and laid pipe down Clifton to Main Street where he set 
three hydrants giving fire protection to property within reach. 
The extensive system of village water works now existing 
was afterwards planned and built by his son Samuel S. North. 
For several years he was a director of the Albany and Susque- 
hanna Railroad and through his efforts the bill making a State 
appropriation which finally secured the road was signed by 
Governor Seymour. Under his influence a law was passed by 

131 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

Colonel North's wife was Eliza Gray of Durham f 
Greene County, whom he married in 1835. She 
died in 1891 and he followed her in 1894 in the 81st 
year of his age. Their son Thomas Gray North, 
was born in Walton, August 15, 1840, and for 
years filled a large place in the business life of Una- 
dilla. He was the head and manager of the bank- 
ing house then known as Thomas G. North & 
Co. which, for more than thirty years, has been 
among the prominent and successful banks in this 
part of the State. Since his death the house has 
been continued as North & Co., Samuel S. North, 
Colonel North's only surviving child being the head. 
Thomas G. North's untimely death in 1885 cast a 
shadow over the village such as few events have 
done. He was educated at Geneva and began busi- 
ness with Charles C. Siver in 1865, first as hard- 
ware merchant and then as banker. Mr. Siver's 
poor health ending finally in his lamented death 
broke up the partnership and Mr. North continued 
the business with his father until he died. 

which nearly all the stone sidewalks in the village were laid by 
residents who secured credit for the same on their highway 
taxes. Personally Colonel North was a man of marked distinc- 
tion, with appearance and address such as would have gained 
attention in any society. 



132 



XI. 



HOUSES STANDING SEVENTY- 
THREE YEARS AGO. 

1828. 

Colonel North, near the close of his life, pub- 
lished an interesting and valuable description of 
the village at the time of his first arrival in 1828.* 
By his kind permission, secured at the time of its 
appearance, the greater part of this paper is given 
here. The description begins at the eastern end of 
the village and first embraces the north side of 
Main Street through to the western end as follows: 

"The first dwelling was a one story house in 
which lived an aged couple, Jesse Noble and his 
wife. 

"Next was the residence of David Finch and 
family consisting of himself and wife, four sons 
and four daughters. 

"At this point was a diverging road, then as 
now, leading over the hills to the town of Butter- 
nuts. On the west side of this road, a few rods 
from Main Street, stood the distillery of Noble and 
Hayes, one of the seeming necessary adjuncts of 
the then new country, to work up the surplus grain 

* Printed in the Unadilla Times in May, i8gi. 

133 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

of those days, for which there was no market ex- 
cept in a liquid form. 

"Next was what was known as the tenant house 
of Noble & Hayes, in which lived Amos Priest and 
his wife on the site of which now stands the resi- 
dence of Horace B. Eells, being the same house 
with additions and improvements in which David 
Finch lived, but was moved to where it now 
stands, because of railroad encroachments. 

"Next was the store and storage buildings of 
Noble & Hayes, one of the earliest mercantile 
firms established in this section. The store, since 
abandoned for such use, has been altered into a 
dwelling, and is now occupied by George Wolcott 
and family. 

"Next was the residence of Curtis Noble and 
family, consisting of himself, wife, four sons and 
four daughters. 

"Next was the residence of Isaac Hayes and 
family, consisting of himself, wife, four daughters, 
two sons and a niece. It is now the home of Clark 
I. Hayes and family. 

" Next was the residence of Captain Amos Bost- 
wick, a Revolutionary soldier, and family, consist- 
ing of himself, wife and one daughter. It is now 
known as the tenant house attached to the farm 
of Clark I. Hayes. 

"Next passing an intervening space of several 
rods of open field, came what was designated 
as the "yellow store" built by Henry A. Beach, 
134 



HOUSES STANDING IN 1828. 

but never successfully utilized for business pur- 
poses. It became a sort of " catch all" for mi- 
gratory tenants. It occupied the lot on which now 
stands the residence of LeGrand Stone. 

"Next was an open field to where Hiram Bene- 
dict and family resided in a small house, detached 
from which was a shop in which he carried on the 
tailoring business. The house at a later day was 
improved and modernized by Jared C. Gregory, 
and is now the residence of Mrs. Wm. McLaury 
and daughter. 

"Next was the house now the residence of Mrs. 
Henry H. Howard, then occupied by Arnold B. 
Watson and family. 

"Next was the residence of Daniel Castle and 
family, consisting of himself, wife, two sons and a 
daughter. It is the same house modernized and 
improved, now the property and residence of Mrs. 
Hurlburt. 

"Next was an intervening cultivated field, upon 
the west side of which was an unoccupied house, 
formerly the residence of Jacob Hayes and family. 
It was at a later day removed, and the lot with 
some addition to it was afterward built upon by 
Hon. Charles C. Noble. The place has lately been 
purchased by James Collins, who with his family 
now occupies it. 

"Next was an open field a distance of thirty rods 
down to where H. C. Gregory and his family now 
reside in the house built by Mr. A. B. Watson. 
135 



THE PIONEERS OE UN4DILL4. 

Within the grounds of the same as now inclosed, 
stood near the east line, the dwelling of Mason 
DeForest, and near thereto a shop in which he 
worked at shoe making. Both the house and shop 
were demolished when Mr. Watson built his house. 

"Next was the Masonic Hall standing about two 
rods east of the brick store since built, in which 
lived Henry A. Beach and his family. Masons at 
that time being in a languishing condition, the 
lodge room was soon used for a young lady's 
school, kept by a Miss Seymour from Connecticut. 
The Hall was afterward purchased 03- William J. 
Thompson, moved to Watson Street, and by him 
converted into a dwelling which is now his resi- 
dence. 

"Next passing an intervening space of several 
rods down to where White's Hall now stands, 
there was an unoccupied building known as the 
Dr. Huntington store, which was afterwards 
moved off, and is now the residence of Nicholas 
Price on Watson Street. 

"Next was the yellow house yet standing, then 
the residence of Dr. David W T alker, his wife, and 
one child, a son. 

"Next after an interval of several rods was the 
house occupied by the family of General Solomon 
Martin, deceased, consisting of his widow, her 
maiden sister, Mary Scott, and four sons, Edward, 
William, Benjamin and Robert. It is the place 
whereon now stands the residence of Marvin 
136 



HOUSES STANDING IN 1828. 

Sweet, which was built by, and for many years 
was the residence of the Rev. Norman H. Adams. 

"Next was an open space of about forty rods 
down to what is now known as the Elder Sperry 
place, where was a house occupied by Albert Ben- 
ton and family, on the site of which now stands 
the Sperry mansion. 

"Next were the store and storage buildings of 
Benton and Fellows, back of which was their dis- 
tillery and tenant house. It is worthy to be re- 
marked that, notwithstanding the cheapness and 
abundance of whiskey in those spiritual times- 
two shillings per gallon at retail— there was more 
drinking and fewer drunkards than there are now. 
Delirium tremens was not a resultant effect of over 
indulgence, nor was such a thing known in Una- 
dilla, until after the local distilleries had ceased to 
make pure extract of rye and corn and the mer- 
chants introduced as a substitute therefor that vile 
decoction of the Devil's invention, New England 
rum. 

"Next was the residence of Stephen Benton, 
where now Major C. D. Fellows, one of the old 
and honored survivors of the long ago now eighty- 
nine years of age, resides, and rejoices in the pos- 
session of pleasant home surroundings and the 
comforting consciousness of an upright life, having 
been always a Democrat without variableness or 
shadow of turning. 

4 ' Next passing along an intervening distance of 
137 



THE PIONEERS OF LNADILLA. 

some forty rods there was a house in which David 
Scott and family resided. 

"Next was a building adjoining the west line of 
the house, lot and premises of Samuel North, in 
which Deacon John Eells carried on the business 
of shoe making. 

"Next was the wagon shop and manufactory, of 
Horace and Sheldon Griswold, since made into a 
dwelling and now the residence and property of 
Mrs. Isaac Crandall. 

"Next was the cabinet shop of Wm. Wilmot still 
standing, but changed to a tenant house. 

"Next was the residence of Wm. Wilmot and 
family consisting of himself, wife, three daughters 
and one son. The residence is now occupied by the 
survivors of the family, one daughter and the 
widow of Daniel. 

"Next was the residence of Deacon John Eells 
and family, which he abandoned a little later to 
occupy the brick house he had built and in which 
his son-in-law E. C. Belknap and family now live. 

"Next was an old house occupied by Luke Wash- 
burn, jr., which served the double purpose of a 
residence and a shop in which he manufactured 
chairs. It is the locality on which now stands the 
residence of Mrs. Henry Briggs. 

"Next on the west part of Mrs. Briggs's lot 
was a one story building occupied by a man 
named Hovey, a repairer of watches and clocks, 
138 



HOUSES STANDING IN 1828. 

who did business under the then attractive sign of 
an immense outhanging wooden watch. 

"Next was the Capt. Uriah Hanford place with 
a frontage of some forty rods on which standing 
well back from the road was a red house in which 
Major Fellows commenced housekeeping. 

"Next was a diverging road from Main Street, 
leading from Kilkenny and Rogers Hollow, facing 
which on the corner west stood a small building in 
which Niel Robertson carried on the business of 
saddle and harness making. 

"Next was the residence of Dr. Nijah Cone and 
family consisting of himself, wife, son and daugh- 
ter. The place is now owned and occupied by the 
widow of his son Lewis G. and his grandson Fred- 
erick L. 

"Next was the residence of Daniel and Gilbert 
Cone, now owned and occupied by James White 
and family. 

"Next and last on the north side of the street 
about forty rods further west was a tenant house 
of D. & G. Cone, since demolished, in which lived a 
man named John Hough and his family." 

Colonel North next describes the south side of 
Main Street, returning first to the eastern end as 
before, and then proceeding west as follows : 

"First came the residence of Judge Abij ah H. 
Beach and family, consisting of himself, wife, two 
daughters and one son, and is now the residence of 
the widow of Oliver Buckley. 
139 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

"Next where Miss Jeyes and her brother now 
reside, was the home of Guido L. Bissell, his wife, 
two daughters and two sons. The house was built 
by the accumulated earnings of the two daughters, 
Betsy and Hannah. 

"Next was the residence of Capt. Daniel Hayes, 
his wife and four sons. Within the same inclosure 
was a shop in which Capt. Hayes worked at the 
business of making hats. 

"Next at a distance of several rods further down 
was the hotel kept hy Joel Bragg, in which he with 
his wife and their children, four sons and two 
daughters resided. It was lately the residence of 
Dr. Evander Odell and family and is now owned by 
F. 0. Adams. 

"Next passing along a few rods below stood the 
shop in which Daniel Castle and Benjamin H. Ayers 
dealt in furs and manufactured hats. The building 
since altered into a dwelling, is now owned by Ly- 
man H. DeForest. 

"Next was the residence of "Uncle John Bissell" 
(he was everbody's uncle). "Uncle John," who 
was a widower, lived here with his son Benjamin 
and family. The old house was at a later day torn 
down to make place for the brick mansion now 
the residence of Dr. Gregory, which was built by 
Joel Bragg, who at that time owned the farm prop- 
erty therewith connected. 

"Next was the residence built for himself by Ros- 
140 



HOUSES STANDING IN 1828. 

well Wright, now owned and occupied by Ex- 
Senator D. P. Loomis and his family. 

"Next standing on the corner of the road lead- 
ing to the grist and saw mills of Joel Bragg, was 
the store of Roswell Wright, occupied by the firm 
of Wright, Watson & Co., composed of Roswell 
Wright, Arnold B. Watson and Abiel D. Williams. 
It is the same building, modernized and now owned 
by Albert Mallery in which the grocery business is 
carried on by Heimer & Mallery. 

" Next, turning down the mill road, there stood, 
some ten rods from the corner, on the west side of 
the road, a wood framed blacksmith shop, oc- 
cupied successively by Turner McCall and Charles 
Wood. Later this building was abandoned and 
the more commodious stone building as now used 
was erected by Levi B. Woodruff in which he con- 
tinued the business. 

"Next standing near the present residence of- 
Hiel Crandall was a house in which lived a very re- 
spectable colored family of the name of Howell of 
which the husband and father, Peter, was a trusty 
man and a recognized favorite. 

"Next on the opposite side of the road midway 
between the brook and the sawmill, lived Richard 
Ferguson, the sawyer, and his wife, in a small, one 
story plank house long ago demolished. 

"Next the grist and saw mills stood together at 
the end of the road which was a Cul de sac ending 
thereat. 

141 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

"Next on the corner of Main and Mill Streets op- 
posite Wright's store, there stood an old house in 
which lived the family of a man by the name of 
Robinson who attended to grinding the grain of 
customers and taking judicious tolls at the grist- 
mill. 

"Next was the law office of Henry Ogden, Esq,, 
occupying the site on which afterwards was built 
by Rufus Mead the store now standing vacant. 
The office was moved down near the mills and al- 
tered into a dwelling. 

"Next was the residence of Henry Ogden and 
family, consisting of himself, his mother, his wife, 
four sons and two daughters, occupying the site of 
the present Episcopal rectory. 

"Next was St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, oc- 
cupying the site on which it now stands, then and 
for several years afterward, the only church edifice 
in town. 

" From the church to the old district school house 
there were no buildings. 

"From the school house to the present residence 
of H. E. Bailey was an open field known as the 
"Harper lot," on which were no buildings. It was 
a place of resort for pitching quoits, ball playing, 
militarv- parades, shows and circus performances. 

"The residence of Mr. Bailey, referred to in the 
preceding paragraphs, was built by the Hon. Sher- 
man Page, and at the time we write of, was the 
residence of his family, consisting of himself and 
142 



HOUSES STANDING IN I82S. 

wife, two sons, three daughters and a niece. Mr. 
Page was a representative man and a notable 
figure in public affairs of that time. On the east 
of the house, close to the street, stood his law 
office, long since moved off and appropriated to 
other uses. 

"Next was the well-kept hotel of James Williams 
which since its modernization and extensive alter- 
ation and improvement, now bears the name of 
the Tingley House. In the now open space, corner 
of Main and Bridge Streets, stood the hotel barn, 
in front of which was a commodious open shed for 
the use of travellers and local patrons of the 
hotel. On the road leading to the bridge, then as 
now, spanning the Susquehanna river, a distance 
of about seventy rods, there were no buildings of 
any kind. 

"From the corner of Main and Bridge Streets 
down to the Edson place, the present residence of 
W. E. Rifenbark, a distance of over fifty rods, there 
were no buildings. On the west side of the house, 
next to the west line of the premises, was the office 
of Dr. Edson but that has disappeared. 

"Next was the house that is now the home of 
William Ingraham and family then occupied by 
John Bottom and family who afterward moved to 
Boston and were there known b\' the name of 
Bottome. 

". Next was a small house on the site of the house 
now belonging to the Rev. Mr. Hayes in which 
143 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

lived Melancthon B. Jarvis and his family of which 
the late Mrs. A. S. Ames was one of the daughters. 

"Next was the tanning and currying shop of 
Johnson Wright which, with his house nearby, 
since demolished or removed, were on the lot and 
premises on which stands the fine residence of the 
family of the late John VanCott. 

4 'Next was the residence of Deacon Holley Seeley 
and family and a little further on was his black- 
smith shop in which he wrought skillfully and in- 
dustriously at his trade of shoeing horses and 
fashioning implements of farming for his custo- 
mers. The family long ago moved away and the 
house was transported to a location on Martin 
Brook Street. The old shop fell into disuse and 
went to decay. 

"Next was an open space of some forty rods 
down to the residence of Niel Robertson and family 
where John Armstrong now lives with his family. 

" Next was the office of Dr. Nijah Cone near the 
present gateway entrance to the barnyard of James 
White. 

"Next was the cloth dressing and finishing shop 
of D. and G. Cone who carried on work in that 
line largely. 

"Next were the barns of Messrs. Cone who, 
among their other industries, were quite extensive 
farmers. 

"Next and last was a red house in which Elias 
Mead, his wife and three sons lived. Mr. Mead 
144 



HOUSES STANDING IN 1828. 

worked at chair making and house painting. The 
premises are now owned by Dr. Johnson and his 
family. 

"A little further down near Bartholomew's shin- 
gle mill was the fulling mill of Messrs. Cone." 



10 



145 



XII. 

THE UNADILLA HUNTING CLUB 

AND THE JUBILEE OF 

INDEPENDENCE. 

1820--1826. 

When the century had passed through its first 
quarter, Unadilla had become a thriving frontier 
settlement. Affording as it did a terminus for two 
great highways, the one to Catskill, the other to 
Ithaca, and with a navigable river giving an out- 
let to Southern markets for lumber and farm pro- 
ducts, notable prosperity had been secured. As 
we have seen, two new bridges had been built 
across the river, a fine schoolhouse erected, and 
church societies established. There were thriving 
stores and hotels, woolen industries, blacksmith, 
cabinet and wagon shops, a hat factory, lawyers 
and physicians. In the township the cloth pro- 
duced in the year 1824 comprised 19,206 j'ards. 
There were four grist mills, three fulling mills, six 
carding machines, and one ashery.* On farm 
lands the number of sheep was 5,044; of cattle, 
2,324, and of horses 439. 

• Earlier in the century the production of pot and pearl ashes had been 
a large industry. One acre of timber land would produce about two tons 
of potash. 

146 



THE MAIN STREET TREES. 

The population of the village was somewhat less 
than 300 : in 1827 it was 282, and in that year it 
was incorporated. It so remained for thirty years 
when after an interval of more than thirt}', it was 
incorporated again. Under that early incorpora- 
tion one-third of the highway tax was applied to 
the construction of side walks. At the same time, 
efforts were made in other directions for improve- 
ments. In the spring of 1828 the large trees that 
now adorn Main Street, were set out — "by the 
united work of willing hands, gratuitously ren- 
dered", said Col. North. 

The population of the township in 1824 was 
2,194, of whom 506 men were farmers and 110 
mechanics, in the latter class being embraced the 
carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, mill operators, 
etc., the proportion to farmers indicating very 
promising activity outside mere soil cultivation. 
Thirteen men were classed as traders, or store- 
keepers. Six were foreigners, b} r which term seems 
to have been meant persons not of an English 
speaking race. Nineteen were free blacks, men 
who a short time before had doubtless been slaves. 
Throughout the county the population had grown 
surprisingly everywhere. By 1820 Otsego counted 
up 44,800 souls, or nearly as large a population as 
it has ever had since. 

On the side of social life for a period ten years 
later, the next chapter will give interesting 
glimpses from Henry Noble's journal. The village 
147 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

had already become a well known centre for deer 
hunting. Indeed, its fame in that respect had ex- 
tended far beyond its borders. Nowhere in the 
upper valley were deer to be had so plentifully as 
among these hills. Men came from distant places 
in the autumn, having formed what they called 
the Unadilla Hunting Club, of which a charming 
account has been left us by Levi Beardsley.* 
Among its members were Sherman Page, Henry 
Ogden and Dr. Colwell, with professional and 
other friends of theirs from Oxford, Utica and else- 
where, among them General Rathbone, Colonel 
Clapp, Judge Monell, Judge Morris, and John C. 
Clark. Sherman Page was the Grand Sachem of 
the club. 

The meetings extended over four daj^s. After 
lasting for five years a Legislative enactment in- 
terfered with them. At each meeting a dinner was 
given by Judge Page, at which were consumed one 
or two saddles of venison, Susquehanna pike — 
then plentiful in the river, and in the capture of 
which Henry Ogden was an expert, — wine and 
brandy. The general meeting place was the village 
inn, on the site of the present Unadilla House, which 
adjoined Judge Page's home and was called 
Hunters' Hall. The game mostly sought was deer. 
From early Indian times this region had been cel- 

* Mr. Beardsley's home was in Cherry Valley He served several terms 
as Member of Assembly and State Senator, and at one time presided over 
the Senate He published his book in 1852, and the charm of its style, no 
less than its contents, is delightful. 

148 



JUDGE PAGE'S REMINISCENCES OF HINTING. 

ebrated as a favorite haunt of these fleet-footed 
and mild-eyed creatures. In a letter written some 
years after the meetings ceased, Judge Page said : 

" We killed twenty-seven deer one week. Among 
them were twelve large bucks. That week we ran 
fifty-two well trained hounds. We had thirty-two 
men who put out the dogs, some in pairs, others 
singly, and about thirty bloods; some men were on 
horseback and others on foot ; some watching the 
points of hills, others at the fords of the river, and 
always one or more at the Indian Monument. * 

"Imagine yourself on the high bank at Pomp's 
Eddy,f the sun just resting over Burnt Hill, Round 
Top at the south, Poplar Hill at the north [the 
points of the compass are here obviously reversed] 
the famous eel weir above and the cave bank below 
you. A hound breaks forth on Poplar Hill; an- 
other and still another on Burnt Hill and Round 
Top. By this time twenty are in hearing. You 
know not when the dog may come. You hear a 

* This interesting prehistoric relic stood close to the river road leading to 
Sidney on the north side of the Susquehanna. The land was I believe part 
of the so-called " Church farm " that gift of Gouldsborough Banyar to St, 
Matthew's already referred to. I well remember the pile of stones, but all 
trace of them has, I think, disappeared. The late William Frey of Sidney 
told me that when he was a boy living on the Hough farm an Indian 
one day arrived at the monument and added some stones to the pile— a pile 
of common field stones this " monument " was, but it might more properly 
be called a cairn. Asked why he did this, the Indian answered that if the 
act were not regularly done by one of his tribe, the Great Spirit would ren- 
der the tribe extinct. Cairns like this were common among the Iroquois 
and are believed to have been closely associated with their firm faith in a 
future life. 

t No longer an eddy, the lailroad embankment having cut it off from the 
main channel of the river, and thus obliterated it. It was named from a 
negro called Pompey who formerly had lived there. 

149 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

rifle at the cave bank and now another at the eel 
weir, and perhaps at the haystack and Ouleout. 
Crack, crack, crack, and still the music of the dogs 
grows louder and more shrill as they approach. 
All is expectation and excitement. You are flurried. 

"At this moment a large buck with antlers erect 
is seen on the opposite side, making his way directly 
to you. Pop goes a smooth-bore, and Spickerman, * 
the poacher, has killed him. Your agitation and 
excitement cease, for you are angry and wish 
John Carley was there to lick the rascal. You 
despair of killing anything,but are not discouraged 
for another deer will soon be along, and as for 
Carley he will certainly flog the poacher when he 
meets him. 

"The dogs are still in full cry in every direction 
and your morning's sport has just commenced. 
Keep your place for another deer will be here; 
and so it turns out. You have killed him and 
Carley has found and licked Spickerman, and got 
away his buck, but has finally restored it at your 
request after the flogging. " 

Mr. Beard sley wrote of those times thirty years 
afterwards : 

"I have seen nineteen fat bucks and does lying 
side by side in the ballroom of our hotel at Una- 
dilla. Even in my sleep and often within the last 
twelve months I have dreamed of those Unadilla 
hunts, and the well known cries of the hounds that 

* This name was well known in Sidney as late as thirty years ajo. 

150 



MR. BEARDSLEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

used to traverse those romantic hills. That music 
has in fact ceased ; the deer are all gone ; the hunts- 
men have laid by their rifles, and civilization and 
agricultural improvements have spread over those 
rugged hills as well as those delightful valleys." 

On July 4, 1826, the Jubilee of Independence 
was celebrated with enthusiasm along the valley 
and on the Turnpike. Toast lists that still survive 
show with what keen interest the political topics 
of that time were discussed. The strife of parties 
and the flow of patriotic speech were as intense in 
that period as in an}' that since has passed, save 
perhaps during the Civil War. It was an impor- 
tant era of expansion and development, in which 
our new civilization was broadening out into the 
democratic spirit that has since pervaded it, sup- 
planting the aristocratic tendencies of public life in 
earlier times. The presidents who had been in of- 
fice were Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, 
Madison and Monroe. In the year of the Jubilee, 
John Quincy Adams was President. Four j^ears 
later was to begin the long supremacy of Andrew 
Jackson, with all that this implied in making the 
general government what Lincoln afterwards de- 
clared that it should still be,— a "government of 
the people, by the people, for the people." 

In those Jubilee orations were contained valu- 
able suggestions of the political temper and stress 
out of which the Jacksonian spirit was to rise into 
control of the National Administration. Along 
151 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

this valley, and in the towns on the Catskill Turn- 
pike with which Unadilla had the most intimate 
relations, — more intimate than with settlements on 
the Susquehanna— these political sentiments were 
everywhere strong. 

Among the celebrations was one at Kortright 
Centre, now a mere handful of scattered farm- 
houses, but then a thriving village where had gath- 
ered for the celebration practically all the popula- 
tion within a radius of perhaps twenty miles. The 
Turnpike was then in its most flourishing state, 
with hotels so frequent as often to stand within 
sight of each other. Along this highway dwelt a 
homogeneous, though long drawn out, community, 
ninety miles in length, with its pulse beating as 
from thethrobbings of one heart, its main interests 
practically identical from Catskill to Unadilla. The 
oration spoken at Kortright in that Jubilee cele- 
bration discloses the prevailing public sentiment of 
the time. * Of Washington the speaker said : 

"Endowed by nature with a frame of the great- 
est strength, which had not been enervated by 
parental indulgence or a puny education, with a 
strength and depth of mind to which to find a 
parallel we may search the records of the world in 
vain, he seemed from infancy destined to command. 

*The orator was the father of the late Dr. Gaius L. Halsey of Unadilla 
— Dr. Gaius Halsey who then practiced medicine in Kortright. These 
extracts are taken from the oration as printed in the Delaware Gazette of 
Delhi on July 12th, 1826. In the same paper was printed the news of 
the death of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams which had occurred sim- 
ultaneously on the very day when this Jubilee was celebrated. 

152 



CELEBRATION OF THE JUBSLEE. 

The inflexibility of his virtues astonished his ene- 
mies; his coolness and self-possession in the hour 
of danger pointed to him as the master spirit of 
the Revolution, peculiarly fitted ' to ride the whirl- 
wind and direct the storm.' His valor had been 
tested in the French war, and long will the banks 
of the Monongahela bear witness to his youthful 
prudence and courage in saving the remnant of 
Braddock's defeated army. 

"On accepting the chief command, his modesty 
and diffidence betrayed the greatness of his soul. 
After showing his countrymen the way to conquest 
and victory he concluded the American war with 
honor to himself and his compatriots in arms. He 
resigned his commission into the hands which gave 
it and retired to his farm to enjoy the sweets of 
domestic life, and this, too, at a time when an ex- 
asperated and injured people were ready to confer 
upon him absolute power. But, preferring the 
happiness of his country and the approving smiles 
of his own countrymen to the glittering diadem, 
he once more endeared himself to the land of his 
nativity, gaining the paternal appellation of the 
Father of his County. 

11 When it became necessar\- to secure the Federal 
compact b\^ adopting a proper constitution, fitted 
to the growing wants of the young and rising re- 
public, he presided in that august assembly that 
framed it. He was the first to administer the gov- 
ernment under its regulations, and for eight suc- 
153 



THE PIONEERS OF UMADILLA. 

cessive years, beset with perils and dangers, guided 
by wisdom, he steered the bark of state into the 
port of safety. 

"For all these services and self-denials, what did 
he ask as a recompense ? The crown had been re- 
fused when within his grasp. Did he lay his hands 
upon the national treasury ? No ; he refused pay 
for the seven years he had spent in arduous service. 
Did he ask for peculiar privileges for himself and 
his family ? No ; none of these. He retired sub- 
limely to the shades of Mount Vernon, there to 
enjoy the happiness rural life affords, content with 
the honor of having assisted his countrymen to 
achieve their independence and establish their lib- 
erty upon a permanent basis. History furnishes 
no parallel to this. Compared with Washington, 
Alexander becomes a selfish destroyer of the human 
race, Caesar the ambitious votary of power, and 
Bonaparte the disappointed candidate for universal 
empire." 

To the Border Wars of the Revolution, which 
were still fresh in the memory of many of his 
auditors, the speaker referred as follows : 

"The sufferings of many peaceful inhabitants 
were little inferior to those of actual combatants. 
Their fields were laid waste and devastated ; their 
homes burned over their heads; their sons mur- 
dered upon the paternal hearth; their wives and 
daughters outraged b}?- a licentious soldiery, and 
to cap the climax of British butchery, the merciless 
154 



SURVIVORS OF THE BORDER WARS. 

savages were let loose on our defenseless frontier 
settlements and a bounty was given for American 
scalps. How often were the scattered inhabitants 
led captive into the howling wilderness ; how often 
was the murderous tomahawk plunged into the 
defenseless bosom; how often was the smiling 
babe torn from its mother's arms and its brains 
beat out against the wall ! 

"Alas! the records of those days furnish too 
many incidents of tragic scenes. How could that 
nation, which we have been told was the bulwark 
for that religion taught by the Prince of Peace, 
authorize such barbarity ? How could that nation, 
which still wishes to lord itself over our minds and 
style itself the pattern of refinement, assist in 
those acts so revolting to human feelings? But 
such was the fact. If any in this assembly have a 
doubt of the truth of this assertion, I appeal for 
confirmation to those whitehaired patriots before 
me whose eyes I see moisten at the recollection of 
the tragic scenes. Certainly the curse of an of- 
fended God must fall upon that people so lost to 
the feelings of honor and humanity." 

Of England's direct complicity in the barbari- 
ties committed during the Border Wars there no 
longer exists any doubt. Joseph Brant, during his 
visit to London, in 1775-6, entered into an under- 
standing with Lord George Germaine, the member 
of Lord North's cabinet, who had direct charge of 
the conduct of the war in America, while the cor- 
155 



THE PIONEERS OF UWDILH. 

respondence between at least one other member of 
the Cabinet and the commander of the English 
army in this country settles beyond all question the 
complicity of the home government in the employ- 
ment of Indians during the war. 

A large mass of testimony also exists .to show 
that the Indians were not only urged to take part 
in the war, but were promised immediate pecuniary 
rewards, were lavishly supplied with presents, and 
were assured that, however the war might termi- 
nate, their material condition should be made as 
good as before. It was not the Indians who were 
responsible for the most barbarous scenes on the 
frontier, but the English themselves— Tories who 
had gone to Canada and come back, of whom the 
master fiend was Walter N. Butler and a leader 
scarcely less culpable, his father, John Butler. 
Brant himself declared, on more than one occasion, 
and notably at Cherry Valley, that the Tories were 
"more savage than the savages themselves." 

How high ran party spirit in 1826 further pas- 
sages from this oration by nry grandfather will 
show: 

"There is one reflection painful to the feelings of 
every well-wisher of our land. It cannot be de- 
nied that party spirit has had a baneful influence 
upon national character. Long must the moralist 
deplore its effects on the manners and morals of the 
present age. Why has the hated demon been per- 
mitted to stalk through our land uncontrolled, em- 
156 




From " The Old New York Frontier." 



Courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons. 



JOSEPH BRANT— THAYENDANEGEA, 

Born in 1742, Died in 1807. 
Prom the Original Painted from Life in London in 1776. 



PARTY SPIRIT IN 1826. 

bittering the cup of domestic happiness and 
poisoning the social intercourse of friends and 
neighbors? But thanks to the wisdom and en- 
lightened policy of our late president, James Mon- 
roe, the administration was shown to be the rep- 
resentative of a nation and not the instrument of 
party feeling, and under him we have enjoyed a 
political calm that is both salutary and refreshing." 

President Adams, having recommended what is 
known as the Panama Mission, the speaker re- 
marked that for this he "had been denounced by 
the aristocratic slave-holders of the South and a 
few renegades from the cause of freedom and hu- 
manity in the North", and then added the follow- 
ing words on slavery and disunion, subjects which 
even then had become portentous to men's minds: 

"These men style themselves patriots and repub- 
licans. Yet we have been told by the mouth of 
this faction ( I mean the beardless man of Ro- 
anoke )* that our Constitution is a falsehood ; that 
it carries a lie upon the face of it in asserting that 
men are born free and equal. Our legislative halls 
have been polluted by hints at the dissolution of 
the Union. May that tongue cleave to the roof of 
the mouth that dares to utter such a treacherous 
sentence, and may that arm be paralyzed that 
shall be raised to cany the unrighteous threat into 
execution." 

In concluding, a few words were addressed by 

* The celebrated and picturesque John Randolph, 

157 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

the speaker "to the surviving patriots of the Revo- 
lution who this day honor us with their presence": 

"Ye war-worn remnant of that patriotic band 
who were the stay and defense of your country in 
the hour of danger, what cause have we not to 
venerate those silver locks, bleached in the service 
of your country, those war-worn features the con- 
sequence of many a painful campaign, and those 
scars received in defense of American liberty? They 
are the emblems of merit and the true badges of 
honor, serving as marks of distinctionby which we 
are enabled to point you out from among your less 
fortunate citizens. They are far more honorable 
than those toys of knighthood so eagerly sought 
after by the s\ r cophants of monarchical power. 

"Long will your country respect that valor 
which shielded her liberty from the attacks of an 
infuriated foe. May your country still reward you 
for those services performed a half century ago. 
Although the liberal intentions of our chief magis- 
trate have been frustrated toward you for the 
present by the illiberality of a faction, yet I trust 
that the da} r is not far distant when you will ac- 
knowledge that republics are not always ungrate- 
ful. May the evening of your da3 r s be as happy 
and serene as its meridian was glorious and hon- 
orable. Although time has greatly thinned your 
ranks and each succeeding year makes your num- 
ber less, your fame will be as durable as the ever- 
lasting hills of your own dear country." 
158 



XIII. 

VILLAGE LIFE SEVENTY 

YEARS AGO. 

1830-1833. 

A newspaper as already shown, was first es- 
tablished here about sixty years ago.* For a 
period earlier than that, no better light could be 
shed on social and business life than is found in an 
old journal kept by Henry C. Noble from Novem- 
ber 1830 to January 1833, now in the possession 
of Mr. Noble's nephew, Dr. Frederick S. Howard 
of New York. When he began this journal, Henry 
Noble was twenty-one years old, serving as a clerk 
in the store of his father and Isaac Hayes. In 
company with Frederick T. Hayes, his cousin, he 
afterwards began business for himself in the old 
Noble and Hayes store, but died of fever in May 

1833. 

That he was a young man of much promise this 
journal alone would show. Any one may see that 
who reads the subjoined passages. While writing 
the journal its pages seem to have been accessible 
to his companions including his brother George H., 

* William Darby, who came from Liberty, Sullivan Co., in about the year 
l8 2 2 ; had endeavored to estabhsh a paper m Unadilla with an officemth 
building where Dr. Huntington had had his store; but it lived only a short 

time - 159 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

and Rufus G. Mead, who occasionally made en- 
tries some of which were prompted by refreshing 
boyishness. Here and there were signs of good 
literary ability, especially on the part of his 
brother. The following items are taken from the 
last six months of 1830 : 

"Dec. 5. Page and Benton party mustered all 
hands today and sent them all over town to get 
signers to have Isaac Hayes (the now postmaster) 
put out of office and C. D. Fellows appointed in his 
stead. Do not fear for the result of their labors 
much; think they mean to effect more at town 
meeting than at Washington. 

"Dec. 8. Employed considerable part of the day 
in arranging post office concerns. We have a stage 
from Catskill every night and one from Ithaca 
every morning; one from .Albany and one from 
Cooperstown weekly. The post office spirit is 
abroad. Everything that has a sound echoes post 
office. 

"Dec. 20. Cotillion part}' at night; had Arnold 
extra music; a very pleasant time. Eat a bowl of 
oysters and come home. 

" Dec. 23. Alarmed about two o'clock this morn- 
ing by the cry of fire. As Fred sallied out the first 
thing to attract our attention was a bright blaze 
flashing at intervals towards the heavens. We 
hasten to the scene of conflagration which was 
Mr. J. Bragg's sawmill and his stone gristmill. 
Not anything could be done to save them as they 
160 



TKE BURNING OP BRAGG'S MILLS. 

were so far gone before discovered. All the village 
folks assembled to see the destruction that was 
going on. Much sympathy was shown as Mr. 
Bragg is one of the most unfortunate men that 
ever lived in the tide of time. About four years 
ago his house was burned. I do not think $8,000 
would make good his loss that he has suffered for 
four years past. 

" Came home from the fire ; went to bed ; got up 
at daylight and in the course of the day all of us 
fixed for the wedding. Christmas eve and Mary 
Hayes is to be married to Nathaniel Piersol, in the 
church before such an audience as alwa\ r s attend 
on Christmas eve. Miss E. B. Page, H. A. Noble 
and A. Edson were bridesmaids, and Hen, Fred 
and George groomsmen. All of us started from 
Isaac Haj'es's house to the church. We soon found 
ourselves before the altar and the hoty man. The 
ceremony soon performed and all took a seat in the 
right hand corner of St. Matthew's exposed to the 
wonderment of a thousand eyes. Came home and 
had a merry time. 

" Dec. 27. It is supposed Mr. Bragg's mills were 
set on fire — by whom none knows. 

"Dec. 28. Mr. Bragg is getting out timber to 
repair his sawmill immediately. They have got a 
subscription to help him ; which has been signed 
very liberally." 

During the first six months of 1831, the record 
embraces parties, a music school, a stirring town 
» 161 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

meeting, the finding of a boy lost in the woods 
and the raising of Joel Bragg' s new sawmill : 

"Jan. 3, 1831. Much is said about clearing the 
dams out of the Susquehanna. They are to have 
a great meeting down the river. 

"Jan. 15. All went to cotillion party in the 
evening; last one we are to have; eight or ten 
couples from Franklin, some from Huntsville and 
Bainbridge ; had a very fine company of ladies, 
say twenty-five, and about thirty gentlemen; had 
Pjto to play, a blind boy and Arnold ; danced 
until about two o'clock. 

"Jan. 28. All went down to Williams's to music 
school, the last they have; had some very fine 
music and all the young folks from the village 
there ; girls and boys and some old women ; went 
from there to Dr. Walker's and spent the rest of the 
evening very pleasantly; got home at twelve. 

"Feb. 1. Benton's store down town, folks sa} r , 
is the centre of business. Let them think, for after 
a close examination we find we have as many me- 
chanics at the upper side of the schoolhouse as 
below and more merchants, more law\ r ers, doctors, 
etc., and much more taxable property, and take a 
great many more newspapers by one-third. 

"Feb. 4. We did but little business in the store 
except we sold a bill of drygoods to T. Allen to 
amount of $230. 

"Feb. 19. Bragg raised his sawmill this after- 
noon. 

162 



*<UP-STREET AND DOWN-STREET" IN 1831. 

"Feb. 27. Caucus meeting at Williams's; all 
met and up-street and down-street could not agree 
upon the mode of making nominations. Therefore, 
they quit and came up to Bragg's and nominated 
Curtis Noble supervisor and David Walker for town 
clerk. Down-street folks held up John Eells for 
supervisor, H. Griswold town clerk, etc., and anti- 
Masons held a meeting at Maxwell's and nomi- 
nated David Hough for supervisor and D. Walker 

for town clerk. S kept open doors all day ; 

kept a bottle of whiskey in readiness and free for 
all who wished to drink, but, by the bye, must 
vote as he wants to have them. 

"March 2. Town meeting day and three par- 
ties. S store turned into a grog shop and all the 

poorest shacks in town voted his ticket and got 
drunk on his whiskey. Eells got 130 votes, C. 
Noble 108, Hough 80, a close run; took a vote to 
move the town meeting up to Bragg's and tied; 
tied again to move to Betts's, and lost hy fifteen 
votes; therefore it must be at J. Williams's again. 

11 March 27. Some of the Clipknockey* Dutchmen 
ran against the free bridge. 

"May 18. S. Pooler had a boy of twelve years 
old lest in the woods near Judson's millf on Thurs- 
day, and all the people for five or ten miles about 
turned out to look for him, say about 500 men each 
day, until Sunda}' all went out and the number 
was estimated at more than 1,000. They formed 

* An early colloquial term for Oneonta. 
t Now the mills at East Sidney. 

163 



THE PIONEERS OF INADILLA. 

companies and each company formed a line and 
scoured the woods until about two o'clock P. M., 
when they found him. Then they all rushed to 
Pooler's house (and it was a splendid sight), to 
hear the horns, guns and the hallooing and the 
multitude altogether produced a scene seldom 
witnessed anywhere. A joyous smile seemed to 
light up every countenance. The boy was out 
three nights and four da} r s. He was able to run 
about and to all appearances would have lived a 
month longer." 

A celebration of the Fourth of July, a mad dog 
scare, the Catskill and Erie railroad,* Dr. Walker's 
new store, Thanksgiving Day, and the marriage of 
the Rev. Norman H. Adams are topics touched 
upon in the ensuing six months : 

"Juh r 4. Called ven r early in the morning; boys 
firing an old gun; heard the thirteen guns fired 
down at Williams's from a three-pounder; worked 
very hard in the store until ten o'clock ; then went 
down to Williams's orchard and heard a very good 
oration from Samuel Gordon, - Esquire ; marched 
over to the tavern and sat down to a good dinner ; 
paid four shillings for it ; gave one shilling to sit at 
the wine table. Commodore M. T. Woolsey pre- 
sided ; Captain Thatcher commanded the gun and 
thirteen regular toasts were drunk, accompanied 

* One of several railroad projects started at that period to rescue the 
upper Susquehanna fiom the injury done it by the Erie Canal. None ever 
got beyond the charter stage. 

164 



A CELEBRATION OF THE FOURTH OF JULY. 

by the hurrahs of the people and the thunders of 
the cannon. 

"Came home about four o'clock, opened the store 
and stayed here until about eight o'clock, and then 
started for Bragg's where the Bachelors of Una- 
dilla had assembled and all the girls in the village 
and some from Huntsville and Walton, etc., and 
together with the officers of the day occupied the 
whole house; the company a large one and very 
select. About eleven o'clock the doors to the din- 
ner table were thrown open and all turned in and 
everyone helped him or herself to whatever they 
wished. The rooms were handsomely decorated 
and the tables were furnished with all the luxuries 
the land produced — berries, cakes, wine, etc. Each 
and all ate what they wanted, then went down be- 
low and promenaded from room to room until 
they were satisfied, all following the dictates of 
their own feelings. At a seasonable hour retired 
each to his respective homes in the best spirits 
possible. Thus we celebrated the Fourth of July, 
and it was said by all to be the happiest day Una- 
dilla had to boast of. 

"July 16. Some droviers here to buy cattle. 
George added up accounts of sales to-day and 
found the month of June $1,900. Store full of 
hired hands to get their pay for harvesting. 

"July 24. In the evening all the girls and boys 
went to take a walk, saj r a company of seventeen 
assorted ; went up to the bridge and down to 
165 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

Williams's corner and home. We have now in our 
village E. A. Ogden, R. H. Martin, C. C. Noble, 
three young men, two of whom, Noble and Martin, 
have just been admitted to the bar and Ogden is a 
graduate of West Point. 

"July 30. Charles* started with Piersol for 
Owego to look at the place and see about going 
there to settle down. George and all the commis- 
sioned officers gone over to Butternuts to officers' 
election; returned at night ; made A. D. Williams 
lieutenant-colonel. 

"Aug. 30. Great cry about mad dogs. Every 
person that ventures out in the evening now car- 
ries a large cane to kill mad dogs with. 

"Sept. 1. Pooler and I went on the island and 
fixed the race course, three-fourths of a mile long. 

Oct. 13. Horse-racing people collecting from all 
parts of the country to see the sport ; race course 
on the island. About four o'clock the horses trot- 
ted, and Pooler's mare by beating the two first 
heats took the money without running the third. 
At night, Fred and nryself took the stage for Cats- 
kill; from there we went to Albany and looked 
about the city ; went up to the railroad to see the 
cars (steam) come in from Schenectad}' and go 
out. f Started for New York on Sunday morning. 

* Charles C. Noble, afterwards County Judge. It was in Owego that he 
met Miss Abigail Camp who became his wife and long survived him in 
Unadilla. 

t The Mohawk and Hudson railroad here referred to was the first steam 
railroad built on this continent for public uses, — that is, for a highway. 
It was begun in August, 18^0, and by October, 1831, when these young 
men saw it, was carrying 387 passengers a day, 

166 



A RAILROAD TALKED OF IN 1831. 

Nothing new or old that is worth recording hap- 
pened until Saturday morning when we started 
for Connecticut in the steamboat. New Milford is 
a dull old town and a very rich one. Some fine 
girls and many old folks. 

"Oct. 28. Norman H. Adams came home with 
his wife ; had been out to Rensselaerville and got 
married. 

" Oct. 30. Have been to church all da^v. Adams 
preached and his wife was at church exposed to the 
gaze of a large congregation that wished to sat- 
isfy their curiosity to see the priest's wife. 

"Nov. 16. Dr. Walker has opened a store one 
door west of the church. Warsaw is in the hands 
of the Russians, but the Poles still fight like he- 
roes. England is agitating her Reform Bill and 
France, unhappy France, is losing what she gained 
in the ever-memorable days of July, 1830. 

"Nov. 30. People talk about a railroad coming 
down the river from about ten miles below Coop- 
erstown and from there to Catskill. Wlien such a 
project shall be carried into effect, then I think our 
part of the country will flourish again, for it is the 
only thing that will shake off the curse that was 
put upon us by the construction of the Erie Canal. 

"Dec. 4. Talk about having a dance to-morrow 
night at Williams's, but can get but few ladies to 
agree to go. Many of them have a kind of religious 
scruple about the matter: think it is wicked, but 
dare not say so for fear of being thought foolish. 
167 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

"Dec. 8. This day is Thanksgiving, but people 
hardly know it ; they read so little of newspapers 
and think so little of the day. Nothing is done to 
distinguish it from any other day. In earlier times 
it used to be set apart for eating pumpkin pies, 
pudding and molasses. Shocking degeneracy. The 
usages of olden times have given place to cran- 
berry tarts, mince and apple pastry. 

"Dec. 9. We held a meeting a few da.ys since 
to appoint delegates to Owego, the object of 
which is to take into consideration the contem- 
plated railroad from Catskill to Lake Erie, and at 
the same meeting agreed to apply for a charter for 
a toll bridge where the free bridge now is. 

"The cold water folks are as active now as any 
we have. They are making great efforts to reform 
the whole community and say the time is not far 
distant when drinking ardent spirits will be com- 
pletely done away with. 

" Came home, got horse and went down to Fos- 
ter's with Mead and Col well; got supper for our- 
selves and a bit of hot toddy, and came home 
about twelve o'clock." 

Below is an interesting collection of entries rang- 
ing from a remarkable freshet and rafting time to 
the raising of Mr. Adams's new house; from the 
marriage of men who were afterwards well known 
citizens to the cholera in New York, and from oys- 
ter suppers at Foster's tavern to the departure of 
168 



A FRESHET IN 1832. 

Samuel North for New York where he had obtained 
employment in Pearl Street : 

"1832. Jan. 16. News, news, news, news! This 
day William J. Thompson, a bachelor, was mar- 
ried to Miss Eliza Betts in the morning and a good 
many of us village folks went up to bear witness. 

"Jan. 19. Benton's free bridge went off with 
the ice last night. The ice went out of the river 
here to-day. It came down from above and dam- 
med up before the store so much that it stopped 
and turned the water onto the island, which in a 
few minutes was almost all flooded, but after a 
few hours the water forced a way through. It was 
a splendid sight to see the rolling and tumbling, 
cracking and breaking up of the ice (say sixteen 
inches thick) and to see the anxiety of the multi- 
tude that lined the bank gazing with a pleasure 
approaching terror to see the operation of such 
tremendous powers. It left the island covered 
with large cakes. 

"Jan. 22. Cone has been down to the Unadilla 
river and says the bridge has gone ; also the Sid- 
ney bridge has turned up about a foot and must go 
off with the ice; but few bridges stand the ice 
freshet this winter. It is the hardest we have had 
this twelve years, so saj^ all. 

"March 13. The island is almost all flooded. 

George and myself went onto it in the boat and 

sailed all over from head to foot. Crooker's part 

is almost wholly flooded. Up at Boalt's the road 

169 



THE PIONEERS OE INADILLA. 

is drowned out, so much so that no one can pass, 
and the Sidney bridge went off last Sunday. Al- 
most all our communications with the other vil- 
lages are cut off. 

"March 17. The vestry have voted Mr. Adams 
one hundred dollars and have raised one hundred 
more by subscription to assist him in building a 
house on the Martin farm which he has bought for 
$1,500. God prosper him. 

"Asa bachelor and a member of the club, I feel 
it a duty to note particularly all the marriages 
that take place, whereby our society is affected. 
Therefore, the case of Levi Bennett Woodruff must 
be commented upon. The bachelors have given 
him a discharge. Woodruff, in short, is a fine fel- 
low of uncommon attainments, rather interesting 
than otherwise, in his manners good-natured and 
good-looking. His wife (Silva Eldridge) I do not 
know much about, although I have long been ac- 
quainted with her ; but think she is of good dispo- 
sition and possessed of generous feelings. 

"April 5. Heard from George today by some 
raftsmen that have been down to Philadelphia 
and sold their lumber and returned. The best 
brought $23. Mr. Wright was buried today. 

"April 15. All the young ladies in this end of the 
street are getting to be religious. Three or four 
of them 'obtaining a hope' as it is called (where 
one is convinced of her duty towards God and 
the light of the everlasting gospel works uponher). 
170 



BUILDING THE WATSON AND ADAMS HOUSES. 

"May 6. Wednesday Samuel North left Watson 
and Williams and has gone to New York. Samuel 
was a good fellow and well liked and one and all 
expressed a regret to lose him. 

" Maj r 30. Samuel North was over from Walton 
and returned on Tuesday. He has been since he 
was here to New York and obtained a situation in 
Pearl Street with 0. 0. Halsted and Company — 
very good place indeed. 

"June 5. Watson is building a new house, al- 
most opposite his store; also Adams is pulling 
down the old Martin house and is to build a new 
one this summer. 

"June 17. Concert on Thursday evening last at 
W. H. Scott's* where he had assembled all the 
finest girls in the neighboring towns as well 
as of this. He had three pianos and the young 
ladies played in succession from the 3'oungest 
to the oldest. The room was crowded with the 
most respectable audience I ever beheld in this 
place upon any occasion of the kind. 

"June 21. The Indians in the Northwest Terri- 
tor\- have declared war against the United States. 
My old friend E. A. Ogden is with the United States 
troops in the enemy's country." 

The building of the brick store, protracted meet- 
ings at Esquire Eells's and a visit from Bishop On- 
derdonk are chronicled during the next half }^ear : 

"July 10. Went in the afternoon to help raise 

* Mr. Scott was now keeping Bragg's Hotel. 

171 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

the Adams house. Samuel North returned home. 
He left the city on account of the cholera which 
rages hard in New York; 100 to 150 cases a day. 

11 Who talks about anything else but the cholera : 
it is prayed and preached and sung and laughed 
about. The city of New York vomits out its in- 
habitants by thousands daily as if it had itself 
got the cholera and was throwing the disturbed 
contents of its prodigious stomach over the whole 
country. The steamboats puff and the coaches 
groan under their hear}' loads. When the stage 
driver winds his melodious horn as he comes round 
the hill all the good old ladies and some of the 
men run to the door to see if the cholera is coming. * 

"July 22. Bishop Onderdonk here and preached 
two sermons, and in the forenoon confirmed about 
thirty-five of the young people, principally young 
ladies. Bishop Onderdonk is good sized and well 
proportioned ( two hundred and thirty pounds ) 
for a man ; performs his duty in a ver}' impressive 
and solemn manner, and supposing none equal to 
Bishop Hobart we were happily disappointed. 

"July 28. Cholera meeting at Williams's tonight. 

"August 26. Cholera still continues to rage in 
New York, Albany, Rochester and Sj^racuse. Dr. 
Col well gone to New York, sent by the inhabitants 
of this village. 

1833. "Jan. 6. On the evening of January 1st, 
the good people of the village had what is called a 

* This paragraph is in the handwriting of George H. Noble. 

172 



FREDERICK T. HAYES. 

donation party at the Rev. Mr. Adams's, at which 
was a very large and respectable company assem- 
bled, and together with the fine sapper and very 
good address by Mr. Adams made the evening 
very pleasant. Donation amounted to about sixty 
dollars and the effect produced was very good. 

Under later dates are many entries in the jour- 
nal in another hand, the hand of Henry Nobles 
friend Frederick T. Hayes, who seems to have been 
his most intimate and constant friend. Some of 
these passages were written years afterwards in 
New York city; others here in Unadilla. Follow- 
ins are a few of them : 

"Henry C. Noble died in Unadilla the loth ol 
May 1833, at twenty minutes before seven o'clock 
-1843. August 6. Looking over this old journal 
and much disposed to feel melancholy. Had he 
lived, todav would have been his birthday. I even 
now feel the pang of the separation. Time has 
been multiplied but has not lessened my friendship. 
I can even now shed a tear. I can say no more. 
"George H Noble died in Unadilla 26th July, 1847. 
-1853. August 30. Henry A. Ogden died this 

^lsW Tuesday, May 19. Obituary of Dr. John 
Colwell in the Unadilla Times. He died on the 
morning of the 13th at the house of Dr. Joseph 
Sweet, full of honors and full of years. Thus are 
those whose names are written in this book pas- 
sing away from off the earth. 



THE PIONEERS OF UNADILLA. 

" 1870. January 6. While over to Hudson City 
yesterday, Carrington I. Hayes told me Mr. Joel 
Bragg of Unadilla died last Monday." 

Air. Hayes survived until 1894, when he died in 
Montclair, New Jersey, and as already stated, his 
body was brought to Unadilla for burial. Oppo- 
site the house in which he was born, has since been 
erected as a memorial a large and beautiful seat 
cut from granite. Standing there in a small park- 
like enclosure, overlooking the Susquehanna, it 
may well testify to the fondness Mr. Hayes always 
had for the village on whose soil he was born, and 
in whose soil he sleeps. 

And so have passed away these pioneers — they 
and many of their descendants. A kind of deso- 
lation has indeed overspread this beautiful land, 
in the midst of which, even in broad noonday, one 
seems to hear "the footsteps of bygone genera- 
tions passing up the village street." 



174 



REMINISCENCES OE VILLAGE 

LIFE AND OF PANAMA 

AND CALIFORNIA. 

1840-1850. 



PREFACE. 

These reminiscences were written by Dr. Halsey 
for "The Unadilla Times" and were printed in the 
columns of that newspaper in the spring and sum- 
mer of 1890. In the following winter they under- 
went revision, with a view to their appearance in 
pamphlet form for distribution among his old 
friends. He had long been in failing health and on 
February 17, 1891, he passed away at his home in 
Unadilla. The last mental exertion in which he 
ever engaged occurred two da} r s before his death 
and was connected with these papers. 

Beginning in the spring of the same year the 
present writer undertook to prepare a series of 
footnotes to these papers, with an introduction 
giving a brief outline of the early history of this 
part of the upper Susquehanna Valley. As the 
subject was investigated, it became evident that 
for such an introduction a great mass of material, 
largety unpublished, could be had in libraries and 
state archives, — in New York City and Albany, and 
in the Harvard University library and the Wisconsin 
State Library at Madison. The work of years, 
rather than of weeks was seen to be necessary to 
prepare a record that could aspire to be at all 
worthy of the historic interest of the subject. 

Researches from year to } r ear finally resulted in the 
is 177 



PREFACE. 

preparation not of a mere introduction to the 
reminiscences, but a formidable manuscript of 
many hundred pages and more than 150,000 
words, embracing not only the history of Unadilla 
village, but the entire upper Susquehanna valley 
from Otsego Lake to Old Oghwaga, and many neigh- 
boring localities. This manuscript that has since 
been divided into two parts, one of local interest, 
the other of general, — "The Pioneers of Unadilla 
Village", now submitted to the public, and "The Old 
New York Frontier." The real germ of the two 
volumes, therefore, lies in these reminiscences. In- 
deed, except for my father's work, those volumes 
never would have been undertaken. 

F. W. H. 

146 W. 119th St., New York. 
Dec. 10, 1901. 



178 




DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY. 

Born in 1819, Died in 1891. 



I 

KORTRIGHT AND TJNADILLA. 
1819--1840. 

Readers of our village paper may find some in- 
terest in the personal reminiscences of one who 
came to Unadilla just half a century ago in April of 
this year, 1890. Such a record may properly in- 
clude a brief reference to mj^ childhood and early 
youth, which were spent elsewhere, the object be- 
ing to contrast old circumstances with the advan- 
tages now accessible for training and educating 
the young that the\- may the more readily and 
completely fulfill the purposes of the Great Father 
of us all. 

It must be evident to intelligent minds that there 
is a Great First Cause from which emanate all the 
phenomena of organized life ; and equally evident 
that the governing motive of that intelligence is 
something higher and more elevating than the en- 
slaving of masses of men in order that a few may 
accumulate wealth and power. Conditions are in- 
deed improving, though not as rapidly as we might 
wish to see them. The facilities of the present day 
for enlightening all classes through higher educa- 
tion are so ample, varied and often so free, as com- 
179 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

pared with fifty } r ears ago, that none need now be 
launched upon the uncertain sea of life without be- 
ing better able to understand and fulfill the pur- 
poses of their existence. 

I was ushered into the world, according to the 
record, on the fourth of May, 1819, twenty days 
before the Queen of England,* among the bleak 
and stony hills of Kortright, Delaware County, 
New York, t My father was born at Bridgehamp- 
ton, which lies at the eastern end of Long Island, 
where his ancestors had lived and died since 1640. 
Thomas Halse3 r , the first settler there, was a Hert- 
fordshire Englishman who had lived in Naples, 
Italy, and then in Lynn, Massachusetts,— in the 
latter place some time before 1637. From Lynn 
in 1640? he sailed with a company of men and wo- 
men to Long Island, where they founded South- 
ampton, the oldest town, I believe, in this state 
settled Ida- Englishmen. 

* After this was written, he was naturally pleased to be told 
that besides Queen Victoria, there were born in that year sev- 
eral men who rose to great distinction —John Ruskin, James 
Russell Lowell, Cyrus W. Field, Walt Whitman and Charles 
Kingsley. 

t Laurence Kortright, after whom this town was named, had 
obtained a large patent in that re«ion late in the eighteenth 
century. He was a son of an old New York merchant and was 
himself a merchant in New York for many years. In a house 
which stands on land formerly part of the Kortright Farm in 
Harlem, New York city, the previous chapters in this volume 
and all those in " The Old New York Frontier " were written. 

I Thomas's line in England ran back from his father Robert 
to John (1529). The family were of the Golden Parsonage of 

ISO 



THE ELDER HALSEY'S LIEE IN KORTRIGHT. 

My father, after whom I was named, was also a 
physician and had emanated from the office of the 
elder Dr. White of Cherry Valley* and was of more 
than average prominence along the Catskill Turn- 
pike in those early days. Being a profound lover 
of his profession, he was very devoted to its prac- 
tice, f He was never known to refuse a call from 
rich or poor, day or night, if able to go. Natur- 
ally sociable and fond of mirth he was a great 
story teller, ever ready to give or receive a joke. 

I will give an instance when a rather expensive 
one was perpetrated upon him, but he took it as it 
was intended, and repaid it in due time with com- 
pound interest. A man of the name of William 
Blakely kept a noted hotel about three miles west 
of our home. A shooting match was being held 

Great Gaddesden (near Hemel Hempstead) in Hertfordshire, 
where Thomas Halsey was born and baptized. To his great 
grandfather the parsonage had been granted by Henry VIII 
in 1545. It is now the home of Thomas Frederick Halsey, a 
member of the British Parliament. The Hertfordshire family, 
it is conjectured, came originally from the manor of Lanesley 
in Cornwall, near Penzance, where the line has been carried 
back to 1 189. 

* Dr. Joseph White was a native of Chatham, Connecticut, 
had served in the Navy during the Revolution and settled in 
Cherry Valley in 1 787. His practice was so extensive that he 
was called to Albany and even to Buffalo. In 181 7 he became 
president of the Fairfield Medical College. 

t He went to Kortright in 1817 from Bainbridge where he 
had married Mary Church, a daughter of Richard Billings 
Church and granddaughter of Colonel Timothy Church, the 
pioneer who came from Vermont. He died on December 
18th, 1835. 

181 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

there one winter day. My father had great pride 
in his abilities with the rifle and was present. He 
and Blakely each had a new beaver hat, which 
kind of head covering was all the style in those 
days, costing eight dollars, then a large sum for a 
hat. Blakely began to banter my father about his 
marksmanship, and finally offered to set up his 
beaver forty rods off as a mark at sixpence a shot, 
Blakely to pay a shilling when the hat was struck, 
the trial to begin after dinner. While at dinner 
Blakely exchanged hats and set up father's as the 
target instead of his own. A confederate in the 
joke was sent to report on every shot. He re- 
ported a failure until the hat had been struck sev- 
eral times, but finally brought it in, when my 
father found he had ruined his own hat. 

The old Catskill turnpike, that starts at our up- 
per village river bridge, and runs eastward through 
to Catskill on the Hudson, passes the door of my 
father's house. On one of the red mile stones that 
stood within a few rods of the house was cut "56 
miles to Catskill." It was the goal for many a 
frolic in boyhood with my neighboring playmates. 

As there were no canals or railroads in those 
days, this turnpike was the outlet for a large por- 
tion of western and southern New York, and also 
for parts of the state of Ohio. The products of the 
farms, butter, grain lumber, wool, etc., had to be 
drawn by teams over this road to reach a market 
at Catskill. Droves of hundreds of head of cattle 
182 



TRAFFIC ON THE CATSKILL TURNPIKE. 

and sheep were passed daily. Stages with three 
and four extra teams heavily loaded hourly passed 
both ways. Hotels were to be found as often as 
every two miles the whole length of the road, and 
all crowded every night. Private carriages with- 
out number were to be seen loaded with people 
and their baggage, going on journeys to visit 
friends at a distance. This vast amount of travel 
to and from Catskill, naturally made that place a 
point of great interest in my boyish mind ; to see 
it was the height of my ambition. 

In those early days the motto of the civilized 
world was "to spare the rod is to ruin the child." 
My father not only endorsed it but improved upon 
it, using the rawhide in place of the rod, but as I 
felt then and am now positive it was a grave mis- 
take. I believe most emphatically that no child, 
whatever may have been his characteristics, was 
ever improved mentally or physically, through 
having the base feeling of fear instilled into him. 
To this day, when that instrument of tortute is 
brought up and I recall my sufferings from the use 
of it, the old feeling of resentment and denuncia- 
tion is aroused. I know it was a great damage in 
my mental development, and I have no knowledge 
of any instance where it served a beneficial pur- 
pose. 

Training and persistent appeals to the budding 
reasoning faculties of the youthful brain are the 
only correct method for the parent who would 
183 



DR. GAIIS L. H4LSEYS REMINISCENCES. 

secure eontrol of his children. Love and reverence, 
not tear and hate, are the principles to inculcate. 
Are the rod and rawhide calculated in their nature 
to inspire love and reverence? Parents should 
rather make companions of children, reason with 
them, let them see and know there are two sides to 
all pictures, good and had; familiarize them with 
the two sides of all moral questions and then show 
them through reasoning powers why the right one 
should be adopted. Brutal chastisement with rod 
or rawhide never drove a moral idea into a youth- 
ful brain and never can. 

What a change in every department of life since 
those times has taken place. Kitchen stoves 
were then unknown; no carpets covered floors. 
My father brought the first cooking stove into the 
town, and his house became as it were a hotel for 
many days, owing to the callers who came out of 
Curiosity to see the wonderful "Jew's Harp'* cook- 
ing stove. Matches were unknown. Many and 
many a cold, stormy night, have 1 been called up 
to harness or unharness my father's horse, and 
many a cold morning have 1 had to go to a neigh- 
bor's forty or fifty rods away, for a shovel oi live 
coals to start the morning tire. 

My school days at Kortright were confined to 
the district school, and three years in a private 
school kept by the village clergyman.* 1 then 

"The Rev. William McAuiey who had become pastor of the 
Kortright Presbyterian church in 1795 and died in 1 85 1. 
1S4- 



AT SCHOOL IN HARTWICK. 

spent a year at Hartwick Seminary* near Coop- 
erstown from whieh plaee I walked at the elose of 
the term to my home in a day, a distanee of 30 
miles. The greater portion ol the three years of 
private instruetion I have always looked upon as 
lost or wasted, it having been mainly devoted to 
acquiringasmatteringof the dead languages, Latin 
and Greek. I say wasted, unless the ease were that 
of a person desirous of becoming a teacher, or of 
diving into moss covered theological traditions. 
Even such persons however would be better fitted 
to advance the general welfare of the race, if they 
devoted more energies to acquiring a knowledge of 
what pertains to that welfare, through methods of 
mental development that belong to modern times. I 
recently read in the Delhi Gazette a notice of the 
death of Robert F. McAuley, a member of the bar, 
at Kingston, on the Hudson river. He was an old 
schoolmate, and the youngest child of the Rev. 
William McAuley, referred to above as the village 
clergyman, whose private school I attended. 

The son and I were very intimate in our youthful 
associations. This led to what I may callanepoch- 

*The beginnings of Hartwick Seminary date from 1754 
when the Rev. John C. Hartwick, the German Lutheran born 
in Thuringia purchased for a hundred pounds his tract of land 
embracing the present town of Hartwick. By his will all his 
property was devoted to religious and educational purposes. 
In 1812 a building for the school was erected, and in 1815 it 
was opened with Dr. Ernest L. Hazelius as principal. In 1830 
Dr. George B. Miller succeeded him as principal and remained 
until 1839. 

185 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

making incident in my youthful history. In those 
days the militar\' law of the state called for a gen- 
eral training day ; all males between the ages of 18 
and 45 were required to be enrolled and to do two 
days' duty yearly — one day of company, and one 
of general training. General training was looked 
forward to yearly as a very important event, not 
only for doing military duty, but as a general holi- 
day for the amusement and recreation of old and 
young, both male and female. Our fathers decided, 
in order to encourage us in our studies, to give us 
the privilege of attending thecoming general train- 
ing, which was to be held that year at Delhi ; that 
is, provided we were studious, and attentive to our 
school duties. 

On the morning of the anxiously looked for day 
we received a letter of introduction to General 
Erastus Root, * of Delhi, who at that time was the 
most prominent lawj^er and statesman in that 
section of the country, if not in the State, and the 
commanding officer of the military force assemb- 
led. We were received very kindly, and placed in 
charge of his son, who took pleasure in showing 

* Erastus Root, a native of Hebron, Connecticut, was a 
graduate of Dartmouth and settled in Delhi in 1796. He sat 
in the Legislature from 1798 to 1802 and was then four times 
elected to Congress, and later was several times sent again to 
the Assembly. From 1820 to 1822 he was Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor of the state, in 1821 a delegate to the Constitutional 
Convention, in 1824 a member of the commission which codi- 
fied and modified the laws of the state; was three times 
Speaker of the Assembly; again was State Senator in 1840-44, 

186 



GEN. ERASTUS ROOT OE DELHI. 

us over the field where the exercises took place, and 
we went home at night feeling greatly elated over 
the reception and other delights of the trip. 

Mr. McAuley was one of the most highly edu- 
cated men of his day, a graduate of Glasgow, 
Scotland ; he was as familiar with Latin, Greek, 
and Hebrew, as with the English language. His 
church was of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian faith 
— "Seceders" as they called themselves in those 
days ; he was looked up to and revered by the en- 
tire community, and was the peace-maker in all 
differences that arose among his parishioners. The 
communicants numbered several hundred. The 
grounds about his church on every Sunday were 
crowded with teams; in fact Sunday was like a 
general training day in point of numbers. Within 
a radius of six miles from his church I am sure it is 
no exaggeration to say there would not be fifty of 
the populace absent from the services, which were 
made up of two long sermons each day, opening 
and closing with a prayer of corresponding leugth. 

At his death the congregation split up into three 
churches which I am told have a comparatively fee- 
ble existence ; in fact I was told on a recent visit to 
the old home by one of the most prominent mem- 

and for many years was Major-General of the State Militia. 
The latter office he held when these two boys from Kortright 
presented their letters of introduction. He was an ardent 
Democrat of the George Clinton type. The poet Halleck 
made reference to him in one of his works. General Root 
died in New York in 1846. 

187 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

bers of the parent church, that he doubted 
whether they could longer sustain a clergyman and 
that they would probably be obliged to sell their 
building to the Methodists. Mr. McAuley raised 
to maturity 16 children— 9 sons and 7 daughters; 
he lived to bury all I think but four or five. He was 
totally blind for several years before he died. 

At the age of sixteen I was left an orphan by the 
death of my father, rm' mother having died five 
years previous. They both lie buried in a favorite 
corner of the ground he owned near the old home 
which was reserved at the sale of the estate 
after he died. Time and the elements have not 
dealt kindly with their monuments, but it has re- 
cently been a reverent occupation of my brothers 
and myself to restore them and enclose the grounds 
with a new wrought iron fence. The old buildings 
are still standing, but in a ven' dilapidated condi- 
tion; the office, a two story building — the upper 
stor}*-, used by his man}' students as a dissecting 
room — stands unoccupied; even the outside front 
door was unclosed on a recent visit. But in most 
other things there has been little change. Kort- 
right presents today essentially the same scene 
that I looked upon in boyhood,— except that the 
inspiring scenes of busy life along the highway are 
known no more. 

On reviewing at this date the following few }'ears 
of my free intercourse with the world, unchecked 
and uninfluenced by parental restraint, I am as- 
188 



LEFT AN ORPHAN AT SIXTEEN. 

tonished at my escape from moral destruction, 
through the wiles and baneful influences, which are 
every where so prevalent and attractive in appear- 
ance to the uncultured, easily impressed, youthful 
mind. Does the world and do parents, realize their 
responsibility in watching over and guiding chil- 
dren through this, the most critical period, morally 
speaking, of life, from sixteen to twenty-one? 
If we only look about we may see a horde of 
stranded, mental and physical wrecks as compared 
with the few who are carried safely through that 

period. 

After spending three years required by law as a 
medical student, beginning with Dr. E. T. Gibbs m 
Kortright, two years after the death of my father 
and ending with Drs. Fitch and Hine of Franklin, 
I was graduated and received my diploma from the 
Fairfield Herkimer County Medical College, which 
was afterward moved to Albany and merged into 
the college established there.* This was in the 
winter of 1839-40, three months before I reached 

my majority. 

As an example of the wonderful advancement in 
all departments of knowledge, allow me here to 

* The Fairfield College was officially known as the College of 
Physicians and Snrgeons of the Western District of New York. 
It had been established in 1809, and enjoyed a wide reputation 
for thirty or forty years It was one of the first medical 
schools established in the United States-in fact it ha* been 
said to be the first. Its decline followed the establishment of 
rival schools at Geneva and Albany, and in 1844 its union with 
the Albany school took p'ace. 

189 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

mention the little that was then known of the won- 
derful, all-prevading principle of elect ricit} r . The pro- 
fessor of chemistry at the Fairfield College, James 
Hadley, when lecturing upon that subject, said to 
the class before him that this principle, so omni- 
present throughout nature, could never be of prac- 
tical use, for the reason that it could only be made 
to produce motion, being without other power, 
and to prove it he had an apparatus, driven by 
electricity-, b_v which a wheel was made to revolve 
rapidly, but the slightest obstruction, as a feather, 
would stop it. He was estimated to be one of the 
highest of chemical authorities. Could he return 
to life again with what amazement would he look 
upon the influence that this element is exerting 
upon the enlightenment and advancement of the 
world. 

In looking about for a place in which to open an 
office for the practice of my profession, I decided 
to stop at what is now Scranton,* Pennsjdvania, 
then a hamlet known as Razorville and a lumber- 
ing section. Coal was known and the people of 
the region were burning it but it had no commer- 
cial value, for the simple reason that there were no 
railroads or other facilities for transporting it to 
market. I finally abandoned the idea and on the 
9th day of April, 1840, landed in Unadilla and 
took board with Erastus Kingsley but not having 
the traditional shilling piece in my pocket ; instead 

* In 1891 the place had a population of 83,400. 
190 



ARRIVAL IN UNADILLA IN 1840. 

I had $5 borrowed money, and a debt of $700 
on my shoulders. 

The 9th day of April, 1840, was a clear beautiful 
spring da} r ; the ground was dry, roads were dusty 
and farmers busy with their spring's work. On 
my wa}' from Franklin to Unadilla on horseback, 
when opposite the old Daniel Beach Hotel, * two 
miles west of Franklin, a hotel having a reputa- 
tiod far and wide, my horse stumbled throwing me 
over her head sprawling into the dust, but luckily 
doing me no damage other than covering me most 
thoroughly with dust. 

Unadilla Village was then a hamlet estimated to 
contain 300 inhabitants; there were three phy- 
sicians, one of whom had come in the year before 
and bought the old Bragg Hotel, the property 
known in later \'ears as the Dr. Odell place. Had 
I known that this gentleman intended to practice 
his profession, in addition to keeping a hotel I 
probably should not have ventured to remain here, 
but once arrived and circumstanced financially as 
I was, I could see no alternative but to stay, and 
sink or swim as the fates might decree. The two 
other physicians, Drs. Cone and Colwell, had been 
here many }'ears, and were firmly established prac- 
titioners. While their deportment toward me as a 
new comer and competitor, was cool and dignified, 
I had no reason to complain of their treatment. 

* Daniel Beach was a descendant of Timothy Beach, the 
Ouleout Pioneer of 1784 

191 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

The outlook at best was anything but encourage- 
ing for a young stripling lacking a month of being 
of man's age. 



192 



II. 

TJNADILLA SIXTY YEARS AGO. 
1840. 

The village as it would have appeared upon the 
map in 1840 I may describe as follows : Beginning 
at the upper or east end, the first building was a 
one story, weather-beaten house, standing near the 
shanty occupied by Mrs. Slavin; it was the home 
of our venerable disciple of St. Crispin, S. H. Fan- 

cher. 

Then came the house now owned and occupied by 
Horace Eells. It then stood on the opposite or east- 
ern corner of the old Butternuts road-the site is 
now occupied by another house— and was owned by 
David Finch, father of Wm. T. Finch, Esq. 

A few rods back on the old Butternuts road 
stood a small, low shanty that had been used in 
connection with the Noble and Hayes distillery 
( since occupied as a tannery by Mr. Eells ) as a 
hog pen; it was then occupied by a family of the 
name of Nichols-Ti Nichols, who was one of my 
first patrons. I shall ever retain a feeling remem- 
brance of the premises, for the reason that on my 
first visit in a dark night, the crown of my head 
came in violent contact with a knot in a beam over 
13 193 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

head, the room being not over five feet in the clear. * 

On the site now occupied by Mr. Eells's house 
there stood one of the first houses built in this 
place, the house on the present Post Office corner 
being the other and of the same style. The one in 
question was then occupied by Amos Priest, who 
was the practical farmer for the Noble and Hayes 
firm, t 

Next was the old store building of the above 
firm, soon afterward used as a tobacco and cigar 
factory by Noble and Howard. 

The two next as now standing were the resi- 
dences of the Noble and Hayes families with the 
farm house next adjoining. Mr. Noble had died a 
few 3'ears previously. Mr. Hayes was still living 
and dealing quite largely in fat stock. 

Next came the old yellow building that was re- 
cently torn down and a double tenement house 
erected on its site. 

Thence was a vacancy down to the premises now 
occupied by Frank Bacon, where was a small house 
afterward succeeded by the present neat cottage. 

Next was the adjoining property with the 
present rear portion of the house; the front was 

* Tyrus Nichols was the full name. The visit occured on 
August 23, 1842, as Dr. Halsey's day book shows. 

t Amos Priest came to Unadilla as early as 1828 and prob- 
ably before that time. He was, I believe from Catskill. His 
wife's maiden name was Olmstead. She was from Sidney and 
long survived him. 

194 



COMMODORE WOOLSEY A RESIDENT. 

afterward built. This house and the small house 
to the east of it were then owned and occupied by 
Thomas H. Graves, a partner in the stage route 
between Ithaca and Catskill. 

The two next were as now the H. H. Howard 
and Benjamin H. A} r ers houses, * the latter being 
years after remodelled by the late Simeon Bidwell. t 

Thence we pass to the stone law office of C. C. 
Noble, t 

Thence was a vacanc\- down to the site of the A. 

B. Watson house now occupied and owned by H. 

C. Gregory, where then stood the Masonic Hall af- 
terwards moved to its present location on Watson 

*The Howard house had been built in 1812 by a Mr. War- 
ren for his brother-in-law Hiram Benedict, Hiel E. Benedict's 
father who died there. In 1831 the house was rented for a 
year by Commodore M. T. Woolsey who served in the Tripo- 
litan war; commanded the war vessel Oneida on Lake Ontario 
in 1812; chased a British squadron for six days in 1813, and 
captured four vessels; commanded the frigate Constellation in 
the West Indies in 1824 to 1827; was in charge of the Pensa- 
cola Navy Yara in 1827-31 ; commanded the Brazillian station 
in 1832-34; had charge of the survey of Chesapeake Bay in 
1836-37, and died in Utica in 1838. He has been described 
to me as " a bluff, sturdy sort of gentleman with a very pretty 
wife much younger than himself" Fenimore Cooper, who 
served under him on Lake Ontario, wrote a sketch of his life. 
He has already been referred to by Henry C. Noble as pre- 
siding at the Fourth of July celebration in 1831. 

t Built originally for Daniel Castle who was living in the 
house in 1824. It had then been standing several years. 

X The house of Judge Noble belongs to a later date. It was 
built in 1846 or 1848. 

195 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

Street, and converted into a dwelling by William 
J. Thompson.* 

Between this hall and the brick hotel stood the 
Mechanic's hall, afterwards moved to its present 
site and now owned and occupied by R. M. Brant 
as a grocery and dwelling. 

The brick store was then occupied by the firm, 
I think though am not positive, of Noble and Em- 
ory, but it was soon changed to Watson and Noble 
and finally to Watson and Hayes. 

Next came the brick hotel opened that spring by 
Erastus Kingsley who was probably as well 
known as a hotel landlord as any man in the rural 
part of the state. He could count his patrons by 
the hundred ; when traveling they would go 10, 
15, and 20 miles extra, just to stay over night 
with "Old Kingsley." 

All was now vacancy again down to the old 
yellow house on the corner of Martin Brook Street 
now owned by the writer. 

There were no buildings on Martin Brook Street 
except a small one story one which is now a part 
of Dr. Joseph Sweet's residence; it was then occu- 
pied by the widow Lamb and two sons, Lewis and 
Gurdon. 

Next on Main Street came the Rev. N. H. Adams 
house with farm attached, Lewis Lamb, above 

* Mr. Thompson made his first visit to Unadilla in 1814. He 
was here again in 181 7 and in 1824 came here to live. He 
died in 1895. 

196 



THE ORIGINAL ADAMS HOUSE GROUNDS. 

mentioned, being his farm hand. This is the house 
now owned and occupied by M. P. Sweet.* 

Again was a vacancy down to the stone houses ; 
the first or eastern one was built and occupied by 
George H. Noble, the other was built by F. A. 
Sands and occupied by Judge Page, who had pur- 
chased it on the death of Mrs. Sands, who was the 
Judge's daughter.! 

Where now stands the Lyman Sperry house stood 
an old house owned by Bradford Kingsley, the 
father of Erastus. 

Then was a vacanc}' again to the corner of Clif- 
ton Street, since opened, where stood the old Ben- 
ton and Fellows store, the front of which— after- 
ward built on— was moved across the street and is 
now the Fellows Block, occupied by M. B. Greg- 
ory, the printing office, etc. The firm name was 

*The house was built for Mr. Adams, by William J. Thomp- 
son. Until thirty or forty years ago the grounds embraced the 
entire space now bounded by Main, Martin Brook and Adams 
Streets and by the lane that passes the Dr. Joseph Sweet resi- 
dence. They were attractively fenced in, had a well kept lawn, 
arbors, etc. Here Sunday school picnics were held and a de- 
lightful place it was. Within the house the Sunday school 
Christmas tree was often set up. Many happy childhood hours 
have I spent within that house and those grounds — waiting for 
Christmas presents, eating picnic luxuries and chasing fire-flies, 

fThe mason work on those houses was done by Edward 
Marble and Wheeler Warrener, with help from " Elder " Place. 
W. J. Thompson did some of the wood work. When Mr. 
Sands some years later purchased the Noble house, Mr. 
Thompson added for him the eastern part of wood and the 
veranda, etc., of the stone part. 

197 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

then, I think, Benton and Fellows, but it was 
soon changed to Fellows, Mead and Finch. 

Next was the old Benton house, then occupied as 
now hy Major C. D. Fellows in whose house the 
elder Benton, his father-in-law, died a few da^^s or a 
short time after my advent. 

A vacancy occurred again and extended down to 
the house then owned and occupied by Col. Daniel 
Cone, since remodelled. * 

A small house stood next, on the lot now occu- 
pied by Col. Samuel North's residence ; it was af- 
terward moved farther down on the south side of 
the street and is now owned by Mr. Bryant, the 
cooper. 

Next was the adjoining brick house, owned by 
Esq. Eells, father of Horace Eells, and of the wife 
of E. C. Belknap, the present owner. 

Then came the frame part of Eds on and Han- 
ford's carriage shop ; t and then the brick shop and 
Wilmot's cabinet shop. 

The adjoining house now owned by the A. P. 
Gray estate % was then owned b\ r a blacksmith of 
the name of Chatfield, whose wife, a sister of our 
old patriarch O. F. W. Crane, was in the last 
stages of consumption, and was put into my hands 

* Built for Horace Griswold in 1828. Col. Cone bought it in 
1834. 

t It dates at least as far back as 1816, when Horace and 
Sheldon Griswold were occupying it. For them it was prob- 
ably built. 

X Built about 1S28 for Smith Lane. 
• 198 



THE GURDON HUNTINGTON HOUSE. 

as a patient by her then attending physician, one 
of my old preceptors, Dr. Francis W. Hine, * of 
Franklin. 

After the A. P. Gray house came the Wilmot 
homestead. 

The next was an old rookery where the residence 
of the widow Briggs now stands and in the same 
yard stood a small house which was afterward 
burned. 

Then came a house patterned after the old house 
behind the Post Office. An incident attached to the 
latter dwelling I overlooked in its proper place and 
will give it here. I bought this property, on the 
corner of Martin Brook Street, in 1850, of Col. A. 
D. Williams, and lived in it seventeen years. Here 
my sons were born. While living there I took out 
the chimney and in doing so, came across a brick, 
on which were the initials of a man and the year 
1809, thus giving at least a hint as to the age of 
that chimney, t The house mentioned above stood 
on the site of the fine residence afterwards erected 
by Evans Owens, which was burned mysteriously. 

Next was the Dr. Nijah Cone house, now owned 
by his grandson Frederick L. Cone, and then the 
Gilbert Cone house, now owned by James White. 

If we now cross the road and return, we find 

*Dr. Hine's father came to Franklin from New Milford, 
Conn., about 1806. Mr. Crane died March 29, 1891. 

f Probably the original chimney was a rude affair of stone 
and mortar. 

199 



DR. GAIL'S L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

the house at the foot of the hill which was the Niel 
Robertson residence. 

The next house stood where the John Van Cott 
residence now is* and was owned by Johnson 
Wright who conducted a tannery in the rear of the 
house. He had a leather store in a building which 
was moved and now stands on Martin Brook 
Street where it has been converted into a house for 
rental. 

Then came the house! and store owned by Colo- 
nel Sheldon Griswold, now the property of the 
Rev. Mr. Hayes. The store was occupied by Gris- 
wold and Cone, Lewis Cone being Mr. Griswold's 
partner. 

A house occupied by A. P. Gray who was run- 
ning a harness shop came next. 

From there all was vacant up to the Dr. Edson 
place, now belonging to the Peter Rifenbark es- 
tate. % 

From there the land was all open up to the hotel 
now the Unadilla House. § 

* On this site a house for Johnson Wright had been erected 
previous to 1816. Mr. Van Cott died in April, 1891. 

fThe tear portion of the dwelling is older than 1824. The 
front was added after 1828 by Edwin J. Smith, partner of L. 
B. Woodruff, and a brother-in-law of Sheldon Griswold. Colo- 
nel Griswold subsequently purchased the property. 

X On this site, in another house, before D*. Edson's time, 
had lived a physician named Mann. 

§ Among the proprietors of this house have been Dr. Cone, a 
man named Dixon, James Williams, Moses Foster, Erastus 

200 



THE SCHOOL HOUSE AND CHURCH. 

Next came the old Page house now owned by H. 
E. Bailey. 

From there all was vacant up to the old school 
house site now occupied by the Teller residence, ex- 
cept that there was a building on the corner of 
Main and Walnut Streets, which was afterward 
moved and is now the upright part of the Jordan 
place on Walnut Street. 

Adjoining the school house stood, as now, the H. 
S. Woodruff place, and next a small house, where 
now the L. L. Woodruff house stands. This house 
was moved and is now occupied by Mr. Price, on 
Watson Street. 

Next came the Episcopal Church and adjoining it 
a house where the rectory stands, which was 
moved to Martin Brook Street for a house to rent. 

Next was a small house which is now the rear 
part of the L. B. Woodruff house. * 

Next across the street came the store and dwell- 
ing of Colonel A. D. Williams, now owned respect- 
ively b\~ A. Mallory and D. P. Loomis. 

Then came the brick house owned by Joel Bragg 
and now the property of Dr. Gregorj'. 

The next was the hat shop of B. H. Avers, after- 

Kingsley, Colonel Thomas Heath, Frederick A. Bolles and 
Chauncey Slade. 

* It was standing in 1803, when Sampson Crooker bought it 
of the Bissells A Mr. Robinson once lived in it and Judge 
Page was married there. 

201 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

wards converted* into a dwelling and now owned 
by Lyman De Forest and occupied by Charles Mul- 
ligan. 

The next was the old Bragg Hotel now owned 
by our agent at the railroad station, Mr. Adams, t 

From there was an open space up to the old Bis- 
sell residence which recently passed into the hands, 
by purchase, of Mr. and Miss Jeyes. 

Next was an old house, since torn down, occupied 
by Daniel Hayes, a hatter. Lastly came the old 
Judge Beach house which now is the Oliver Buckley 
residence, t 

Thus I have mentioned every house and building 
of any importance which constituted the village of 
Unadilla when I first became a resident and which 
stood on Main Street. Watson Street has since 
been opened through to Bridge Street with the ex- 
ception of the portion that runs through the land 
between the Misses Raitt and Miss Elizabeth Veley 

* Mr. Ayers was a son of Jehiel Ayers and was born near 
Carr's Creek. His mother was a sister of John M. Niles who 
was Postmaster General under Van Buren, and at another time 
United States Senator. Another brother of hers was the father 
of Samuel Niles. 

t Built in 1826 or 1827 after the burning of ]\Ir Bragg's first 
hotel in 1824. 

J Oliver Buckley was the son of William Buckley and was 
born near Unadilla Centre in 181 7. His father removed to Al- 
bany in 1822 and engaged in a mercantile pursuit. Oliver 
spent many years of his life on the Unadilla Centre farm and 
reared a large family of sons. His wife was the daughter of 
Judge Douglass of Franklin. His father came to Unadilla 
from Litchfield, Connecticut, by way of the Turnpike. 

202 



MARTIN BROOK ROAD OPENED. 

residences, but there were no buildings yet erected 
on it. There was not a dwelling or other building 
standing on Mill Street except the Woodruff stone 
blacksmith shop, J. Hanford's wagon shop, the 
mills and the house where Hiel Crandall lives, 
which was then the Mill house and stood on the 
corner by the Condensery. 

Martin Brook road had been opened a few years 
previous. It was opened in its upper part largely 
through the efforts of A. B. Watson and A. D. 
Williams who desired to bring business from the 
Rogers Hollow country to the upper end of the 
village. The land on either side was in a state of 
nature, covered from near the Eells tannery, with 
pine and hemlock; nearly an unbroken forest 
through to the Wheeler Warrener farm on the Rog- 
ers Hollow side of the hill. There was a small 
clearing on what is now the John Osborn farm, 
and just beyond, a man of the name of Wycott, 
had rolled up the year before, a small one room 
log house. The road was hardly passable the 
greater portion of the way and I had quite a se- 
rious time one very dark, stormy night in getting 
home from a visit to one of the Bartholemew fami- 
lies, then living beyond the Rogers Hollow Creek. 

I was on horseback, and started for home about 
eight or nine o'clock, as near as I can remember. It 
was raining and as dark as a pocket, but I had no 
difficulty until I reached the summit of the ridge, 
coming toward the village, where I struck the 
203 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

thickest of the woods. The limbs and underbrush 
began to whip me in the face, and I soon became 
aware that my horse had lost the trail — it was not 
fit to be called road — but I could do no better than 
give her the reins, protect nry face from the brush, 
and allow her to go where she pleased. After 
what seemed to me hours, I discovered in the dis- 
tance, a slight glimmer of light and pointed for it. 
I found it to be the reflection, through the unraud- 
ded chinks, of the Wycott house fire place. They 
were all abed, and had left the brands burning and 
the light showing between the logs. I hallooed 
and induced the old man to lend me his lantern. 
When I reached home the clock was striking twelve 
so that I was certainly three hours traveling some 
three and a half or four miles. 

An amusing incident in my experience in that 
neighborhood occurred on the Osborn farm above 
referred to. An old log house standing near the 
creek below the Osborn barn was occupied by Ethan 
Allen, known as " Capt. Horn," who was given, 
as those who remember him will recall, to boasting 
and telling pretty tough yarns, one of which gave 
him the nickname above mentioned. This yarn re- 
lated to his grabbing a bull by the horns and 
hurling him off a bridge and twisting off the 
horns. 

Well, I was called to see him one cold night and 
found him suffering severely from pleurisy; while 
preparing to bleed him, which was the accepted 
204 



"CAPTAIN HORN." 

treatment in those days for that disease, he made 
the remark, in his boastful way, that he had never 
fainted in his life, and that I might take as much 
blood out of him as I pleased ; I could not make 
him faint. Feeling a little mischievous I concluded 
to test his powers of endurance. T drew him up 
before the fireplace, where a roaring fire was burn- 
ing, corded his arm, made a free opening into the 
vein, and the blood poured out in a stream nearly 
as large as my little finger. In less than two min- 
utes he was on his back on the floor in a complete 
faint. After a few moments he came to ; looking 
up and rubbing his eyes he said : " Doctor, I was 
not the least bit faint. I was only a little sick at 
the stomach and thought I would lie down a mo- 
ment."* 



* This incident, as Dr. Halsey's day book shows, occurred on 
November 27, 1844. 



205 



III. 

OLD INHABITANTS AND EARLY 
PRACTICE. 

The following are the names, I believe, of all 
persons now living whom I found here in April, 
1840, and who are still residents in April, 1890: S. 
H. Fancher, C. I. Hayes, Mr. and Mrs. H.H. How- 
ard, Mrs. C. C. Noble, Airs. Curtis Gregory-, Mrs. 
A. P. Gray, Major C. D. Fellows, Mrs. E. C. Bel- 
knap, Miss Elizabeth Yeley, David Hanford, Sam- 
uel D. Bacon, Mrs. Louisa Hanford, Mrs. Edson 
Jennings, Emeline Wilmot and Captain F. A. Bolles. 
Others who were then here and are still living else- 
where are these : Mrs. George H. Noble, YVaverley ; 
Mrs. A. B. Watson, New York ; Samuel Robertson, 
Corning; Mrs. R. S. Hughston, Delhi; William T. 
Finch, Chicago, and J. I. Laraway. C. W. Carpen- 
ter arrived a month later. * 

J. I. Laraway and his father-in-law Weidman 
had recently purchased the water power and mills 

*Of these persons, the only ones now living, I believe, are: 
Miss Veley, David Hanford, Samuel D. Bacon, Mrs. Curtis 
Gregory, Mrs. E. C. Belknap and C. W. Carpenter. 

" How fast has brother followed brother 

From sunshine to the sunless land." 

206 



SURVIVORS FROM 1840. 

of Joel Bragg, and had moved in from Schoharie 
County a month or two ahead of me. Older citi- 
zens will remember the disaster which befell them 
soon after their arrival, by the going out of the 
river dam. 

The only Church was St. Matthew's, of which 
the Rev. N. H. Adams was rector. He was univer- 
sally beloved and was very attractive in the pulpit, 
the church being well filled upon all occasions 
when he preached. The district school offered the 
only facilities for educating the young, but it was 
generally supplied with excellent teachers. 

Captain ''Horn" was one of my first and most 
constant patrons. He then lived on the old But- 
ternuts road, about two miles from the village, in 
a tumbled down log house — log houses were the 
rule in those days ; outside of the villages a frame 
dwelling was comparatively rare — with a flock of 
small children nearly as wild as Arabs. My day 
book for the year 1840 will show that I averaged 
visits twice a week professionally and my only rec- 
ompense was the working of my poll tax and an 
occasional day's work he did on the lot which I now 
occupy purchased of A. B. Watson and Isaac 
Hayes in 1841. 

As an instance of how lasting an impression a 
slight and insignificant matter will make on a per- 
son's mind I give the following: In the woods as 
you climb the hill on the old Butternuts road going 
north one day I saw a bird about half the size of a 
207 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

robin, of a dirty red plumage, which had as I re- 
member, but two notes to its song and these of a 
mournful character. Whenever I have since heard 
that bird's song it has brought to my mind the 
idea of pinching poverty, so closely associated 
was it with my frequent travels to that poor family. 

Col. Williams' store, on the corner of Mill Street, 
was a rendezvous in those days for the genial spir- 
its of the village including the Colonel himself. It 
was rare fun to listen to the jokes and repartee of 
a coterie of fun-loving men, made up of Dr. Col- 
well, Rufus G. Mead, Benjamin H. Ayers, L. Bennett 
Woodruff, A. B. Watson, David Finch and others. 
The shots and jokes flew thick and fast, keeping 
the room in a roar of laughter. 

Mr. Woodruff was then running the blacksmith 
shop. He had recently bought a pair of sporting 
fowls. Mr. Mead rushed into the shop one morn- 
ing, saying to Mr. W r oodruff hurriedly, "there's a 
crow in your walnut tree; let me take your gun." 
Mr. Woodruff had a double barrelled gun, and 
prided himself on his abilities as a marksman. He 
insisted on using it himself— just what Mr. Mead 
wanted him to do. Mr. Woodruff loaded both 
barrels and creeping out very cautiously to a 
proper distance, blazed away and brought down 
his blooded hen. It was a long time before he 
heard the last of that joke. 

When "Mesmerism" began to attract attention, 
Dr. Col well took quite an interest in it. Mr. Mead 
208 



RUFUS MEAD AND DT? . COLWELL. 

thought he saw an opportunity to accomplish a 
good joke on the doctor. He proposed to mes- 
merize him and appointed a time for the experi- 
ment. He prepared on the sly a dinner plate, 
covered on the bottom with lamp black, which he 
gave to the doctor to be held by him in front with 
the clean side opposite his face, Mr. Mead sitting 
in front with a similar plate, minus the lamp black. 
Dr. Colwell was to make every motion that Mr. 
Mead made. Mr. Mead drew his finger across the 
bottom of his clean plate, and then across his fore- 
head. Dr. Colwell started to make the same mo- 
tion on his blackened plate— he of course being 
ignorant of the lamp black— but instantly fath- 
omed the aims of the enemy and putting his 
thumb to his nose, said, "Don't you wish you 
could!" 

The street was alive with similar episodes in 
those days, but when town meeting occurred, then 
what a tumult! The cries were "up-street" and 
"down-street!" and "Hurrah, boys"; there was 
war to the knife for the two factions and a tri- 
umph duly celebrated by the winning side. Hap- 
pily those days, so suicidal and damaging to the 
welfare of the village, are fast becoming mere 
matters of history. 

Some time in the month of June following my 
advent in Unadilla, a renowned menagerie— June, 
Titus and Angevine's— appeared for exhibition; 
the}' stayed over night with Kingsley, where I was 

14 209 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

boarding, leaving before day break. Mr. June, on 
going out of his sleeping room in the dark, fell 
down the stairway, bruising himself severely and 
had to remain behind for two days. I being in the 
house was called up to see to his injuries, for which 
I charged him one dollar. This was the first money 
I received from my profession. 

My first act in dental surgery was performed on 
the person of the well known Lewis Carmichael, 
who at that time was a rising influential politi- 
cian; in fact he almost controlled the politics of 
the town, though he was not old enough to use the 
franchise himself. * 

At the close of my first year of practice I had 
charged the sum of $125, as my day book will 
show and three quarters of it still stands unpaid. 
I owed Kingsley ninety odd dollars for board for 
which I gave him a note, that was current in the 
community for several years, apparently legal ten- 
der; it passed through many hands before it 
finally reached mine again. This was anything but 
encouraging. The future had a decidedly blue look 
but I could do nothing less than hang on and hope. 

I had then a friend to whom I owe a lasting debt 
of gratitude, which it has ever been a great pleas- 

* The father of Lewis and Edward Carmichael was William 
Carmichael who came to Unadilla about 1830. At the age of 
16 he enlisted in the British service from Ireland, where he was 
born about 1785 and served for 16 years and 6 months, chiefly 
under Wellington. He was in the Peninsula campaign and 
witnessed the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna. Return- 
210 



HARRY WOLCOTT. 

ure to repay so far as has been in my power by 
rendering similar encouragement to the young man 
just starting out. His name was Harry Wolcott ; 
he lived on the farm now owned by Gardner Rider 
on the Franklin road in Sidney and was a bachelor 
living with an invalid maiden sister. Whenever I 
met him his encouraging words were "stick doctor; 
you will finally succeed. ' ' No one but he who is sim- 
ilarly situated can realize and appreciate the value 
of such a friend as he was. He held a high position 
in the community as an intelligent, thorough-going 
business man. That his surroundings in his pres- 
ent state of existence are more in consonance with 
his faculties and aspirations I can have no doubt. * 
Asking pardon for this digression, I resume my 
story. In the fall of 1840— when I cast my first 
vote, which was cast for Martin VanBuren— I mar- 
ried Theodora Kirby, daughter of Reuben Kirby , f 
of Bainbridge, and began house keeping in the 
spring of 1841, in the house now owned by Mr. 
Morse on the corner of Main and Walnut Streets 
which had been built in the summer of 1840. 

ing from Spain with Wellington he took part in the battle of 
Waterloo where he was wounded by a French soldier with a 
bayonet. He then came to America with his regiment and at 
Plattsburg left the service. 

* Mr. Wolcott was a son of Nathaniel Wolcott, one of the 
pioneer settlers on the Ouleout. He died in middle life. The 
first charge in the ledger was for services to Mr. Wolcott. It is 
dated April 17, 1840— thirteen days after Dr. Halseys arrival. 

t His father, also Reuben Kirby, was an early settler in the 
town of Bainbridge. 

211 



DR. GAIliS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

Death claimed her a little over two years after- 
wards, beloved by all who had ever known her. 

In the spring of 1841 a boy came asking me to 
go over to what was then known as the Baxter 
Saw Mill, on Carr's Creek, * to see his brother. On 
reaching the bridge crossing the creek on the river 
road, I met another bo}^ urging haste. I hurried 
accordingly, and when I reached the house a young 
man stood in the door in great agom r for want of 
breath. Just as I reached him after tying my horse 
he began to settle down in a suffocating condition. 
I caught him in my arms and laid him on the bed. 
After a hasty inquiry, the house being filled with 
the family and neighbors, I surmised where the 
difficult^r was, unbuttoned his shirt collar and took 
out m}' thumb lancet— having no other instrument 
with me. Mr. Chester Sweet, father of the two 
Drs. Sweet, a giant of a man, then stepped up and 
asked, "what are you going to do doctor, cut his 
throat?". I replied "j-es." "You must not do it " 
said he, "let him die a natural death" making a 
motion to push me away. I replied, "Stand back ! 
I am the doctor here, and you interfere at your 
peril." I passed the lancet into the trachea or 
wind wipe, just below the "Adam's apple," or 
prominence in the male neck, and called for a goose 



.-5' 



* On or near the site of the grist and saw mills built by the 
Tory John Carr before the Revolution. Here stood the first 
mills ever built in this part of the valley. 

212 



A CASE THAT ASSURED SUCCESS. 

quill, having rolled the man over on his face to pre- 
vent the blood from running into the opening. 

The instant the lancet entered the trachea the air 
rushed into the lungs with a whistle, so forcibly 
were the muscles endeavoring to inhale air into the 
lungs. In a few moments he recovered conscious- 
ness and continued to breath through the quill 
until the next morning. This operation had taken 
place in the afternoon. In the night, or toward 
morning, an abscess broke, discharging a large 
amount of pus. The operation thus was successful 
and the fellow lived many years. News of the 
operation was carried far and near. The young 
doctor had actually brought a dead man back to 
life; so went the report, and from that time on I 
had my share of business. 

My first opportunity for treating a broken bone 
was the case of a young lady living two miles be- 
low Teedville, on Trout Creek, a sister of Mrs. H. 
B. Crooker of this village. On her return from a 
visit to her parents to resume her position in the 
woolen mill, then in operation at Crookerville, she 
was thrown from her carriage, breaking the bone 
between the knee and hip. In passing over the 
road to reach her I did not wonder at the accident ; 
a worse road to be called a highway could not be 
found. I never had better success in all my expe- 
rience in after practice. 

Many years afterwards 1 had a similar case 
which proved disastrous to the patient from 
213 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

causes beyond control, but resulted in my having 
to defend a charge of mal-practice at Delhi. A Mr. 
Bundy, of East Masonville, had the misfortune to 
break his thigh. He was past the prime of life, 
and had been a sufferer for many years from 
chronic diarrhoea, from which cause he was very 
thin in flesh, his physical powers poorly condi- 
tioned to withstand the strain of a long confine- 
ment upon his back as was necessary in the treat- 
ment of his injur}'. I apprised him of the fact at 
the time, that he might understand his danger. 

I used every effort to support his feeble condition 
but with such slight success that at the end of 
seven weeks I was obliged to relieve him from the 
close restraint in order to save his life — three 
months is the average duration of time necessary 
in such cases. He fully understood the condition 
and refused any professional counsel, which I ten- 
dered, expressing himself as having confidence in 
the wisdom of my management. The result was 
a bending at the seat of the fracture, the callosity 
not having become sufficiently hard to offset the 
contraction of the muscles and he was a cripple for 
the remainder of his life. More than a year after- 
ward, through the influence of professional rivalry, 
he became dissatisfied, and prosecuted me. The 
case was tried at Delhi and resulted in disagree- 
ment of the jury. Before the sitting of the next 
court the plaintiff voluntarily offered, through his 
attorney, to drop the case by each party paying 
214 



'•DR. BEAN POLE." 

his own costs, which I accepted, notwithstanding 
Judge Mason, before whom the case was tried, told 
my counsel he never saw a more complete defense 
established, and that I was entitled to a verdict. 

My first obstetrical case was in the family of 
John Butler, * father of Captain Frank Butler. Dr. 
Cone was the family physician but was not ob- 
tainable, and as a last resort I was called to of- 
ficiate. I shall never forget the reception I met 
with, and the close scanning by the sharp black 
eyes of the patient, with the severe catechising I 
had to endure. Expecting her "old doctor," and 
seeing a young stripling — "Dr. Bean Pole"t I was 
called in those days — she as a matter of course was 
taken by surprise, never having seen me before. 
That straight laced moralist, who believes the sin 
of lying should be denounced under any and all 
circumstances, would I am sure admit that there 

* John Butler was born in 1804 in Connecticut and came to 
Unadilla when a young man, At the time of bis death, Dr. 
Halsey wrote a sketch in which he said Mr. Butler, in that 
" dense forest, rolled up a rude log cabin and started to hew 
himself out a farm which became one of the handsomest hill 
farms in the town." 

t Dr. Halsey was six feet two inches in height, but towards 
middle life, gained in weight and thereafter until he was about 
70, weighed considerably more than 200 pounds. I cin never 
forget the proportions of his figure as I saw him after death 
when he lay against the parlor wall in a suit of black. Taller 
he seemed than ever, his shoulders broader, the chest more 
dome-like, the features more aqueline, the forehead more ample 
— altogether the stateliest human figure I had ever seen recum- 
bent. 

215 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

are exceptions to all rules, had he been in my shoes 
at that time and thus forced to give an encourag- 
ing answer to the many questions as to my expe- 
rience in such cases, a truthful answer to which 
would have driven me from the house. The case 
terminated happily for all concerned and we have 
been fast friends ever since. * 

My horse when I got her was an unbroken three 
year old colt. She proved to be a remarkably fleet 
roadster. I drove her six } r ears and during that 
time had many a frolic with other drivers on the 
road. I was driving once from Mt. Upton down 
the Unadilla river, and overtook a man on horse- 
back near where the old Oxford turnpike joins the 
river road. He refused to let me pass him by whip- 
ping in ahead whenever I attempted to pass. My 
horse soon "caught on" to the situation and was 
as anxious for a little fun as I. Having a long bow- 
tipped whip I drew up on the lines and chirupped to 
the mare. When close enough I gave his horse a 
cut with my whip which caused him to jump and 
came very near unhorsing the rider. He had not 
more than recovered his equilibrium before I 
brought the whip down again and so on continued 
to lash the horse which was soon running his best 
gait. 

It became so interesting for the rider that he 
finally offered me the road by getting outside the 

* The date of this case was Oct. 13, 1840 — six months after 
his arrival in Unadilla. 

216 



FROLICS WITH DR. COLWELL AND OTHERS. 

track, but I refusing the offer followed up another 
cut of the whip which brought him back into the 
road. I ran him in this way to Rockdale, a dis- 
tance of a mile or more. On reaching his home he 
rolled himself off without waiting for his horse to 
stop, and with an oath said: "Now get out of 
that wagon and I will whip you." I stopped and 
laughingly said to him "next time a stranger in 
civil manner asks for the road I am inclined to 
think you may find it worth while to give it," 
bade him good day and passed on. 

On another occasion I was driving home from 
Cooperstown. Just this side of Portlandville a 
road comes down off the hill on which a man in a 
cutter was that day coming. He apparently saw 
me as he struck his horse into a sharp trot. I al- 
lowed him to come in ahead of me, but soon my 
horse's head was over the back of his cutter puf- 
fing her breath against his head. He lashed his 
horse into a run but was unable to get away ; the 
mare's nose still kept his ears warm. Thus I ran 
him to where he turned up the hill road just this 
side of Milford Centre. Bidding him good night as 
I passed him — it was a bright moonlight evening 
— I came on home. 

I could give many like incidents, and cannot re- 
frain from giving one such frolic I had with Dr. 
Colwell. He had just got a very fast mare from 
"Bill" Green of Mt. Upton. We were both called 
in counsel in the case of Zachariah Prindle, father 
217 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

of Judge Prindle of Norwich. He lived in Ideuma 
and it was his last sickness. It was fine sleighing 
and when we were putting on our overcoats 
Colwell said: "Doctor if you get started first, I 
will try and keep in sight of you." I replied, " Well, 
if you do, I will either give you the road or drive 
fast enough to get out of the way." I started out 
first and soon after strikingthe Hollow Creek road, 
the doctor's mare's nose was in my neck. I drew 
up on the lines, chirupped to my horse, and soon 
was out of his way- I doubt whether two horses 
were ever driven over that road to the village in so 
short a time. When I drove up to my barn, which 
still stands in the rear of the Teller residence, the 
doctor was about where the railroad crosses Mar- 
tin Brook Street. He never referred to the matter 
afterwards. 

Dr. Colwell was a bachelor, somewhat eccentric, 
sharp, quick witted, and could be very sarcastic 
when occasion required it. As an instance, I have 
heard the following anecdote often told. When he 
came to Unadilla, Dr. Edson was practicing here— 
grandfather to our present Supervisor. He was 
said to have been a nervous excitable man, easily 
irritated. He met Colwell one day on the road, 
not long after Colwell settled here, stopped his 
horse and said to him, "Young man, you had bet- 
ter leave here while you can, for I shall starve you 
out." Colwell promptly replied, "You can't, for I 
won't board with you." 

218 



DOG DAISY AND HIS MISTRESS. 

[As an illustration of Dr. Halsey's fondness for 
animals may be introduced here a little item writ- 
ten by him on another occasion for the Unadilla 
Times. Dog Daisy whom he describes was a poodle 
having a coat as white as Angora wool : 

"Kind nature once bestowed upon a household 
in Unadilla a dear girl baby as another link in the 
unending chain of organized life in human form. 
While yet in her infant years an elder brother, 
grown to manhood, gave her as an evidence of his 
interest in her welfare an infant specimen of the 
canine species for a companion and plaything. The 
two became almost inseperable, by day and by 
night. Years passed, and their love and friendship 
strengthened. 

" When the child arrived at the proper age to re- 
quire the pedagogue's aid in the development of 
her intellectual faculties, the little white bundle of 
animated wool would be seen in constant daily at- 
tendance upon her, going to and from the school 
room, during the hours of study, reclining under 
her seat and by her side during recitations. Upon 
arrival home at the close of the day's session he 
would bound into the house with the happiest 
possible expression of laughing face and wagging 
bushy tail, fully understood by the parents as say- 
ing 4 One more day of faithful protection for your 
child.' 

"Such were his characteristics of faithfulness and 
gentleness that both teachers and scholars recog- 
219 



DR. GAIliS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

nized his claims to an exception in school rules ; he 
was allowed free entrance and occupancy of the 
general school room. But age and its attendant 
infirmities which have no respect for any human or 
other being, gave at last the final decree of change 
which we call death and Daisy has gone where all 
good dogs go."*] 

For the following few years up to 1847, I had a 
full share of patronage, but in consequence of the 
scarcity of mone\' in circulation, the original load 
diminished slowly. In 1845 I had found and mar- 
ried my present wife in Yankeeland, Connecticut. 
Here allow me to perform the most grateful and 
pleasing duty of my life and say that to her un- 
selfish, and devoted efforts for my interests, I am 
largely indebted for any measure of success I have 
attained in life. She had a strong affection for her 
native State and place of birth. I knew that my 
ledger showed I had more than enough to balance 
my obligations. Confident that there was an in- 
viting field at her old home, I decided to emigrate 
to Connecticut, and in 1847 sold out«to Dr. Odell, f 
and left Unadilla as I supposed for good— so little 
do we know what the future has in store for us. I 

* Daisy died while the object of his long devotion, Miss La- 
vantia Halsey, was attending school in Tarrytown-on-the-Hud- 
son, a school to which he could not go with her. 

t Dr. Odell had then been practicing in Sidney for seven 
years. He was a native of New Berlin where he had read 
medicine with Dr. Ross. He died in Unadilla in 1883, at the 
age of seventy-four. In the year 1839 when he settled in Sid- 
ney he married Mary A. Mulford of New Jersey. 
220 



REMOVAL TO CONNECTICUT. 

located first in the town of Southington, Hartford 
County. The year following I bought a house and 
lot in Plainville, four miles north and a promising 
town of recent origin. Here I considered myself a 
permanent fixture and was building up a good 
practice when the whole course of my life was 
changed for a year. The scene was shifted to the 
tropics and then to California, in the course of 
which I nearly lost my life. 



221 



IV. 

PANAMA AND CALIFORNIA. 
1849. 

In 1848 the news of finding gold in California 
was a prominent feature of newspapers all over 
the country. A fever for emigration to the mines 
spread with unheard of rapidity throughout the 
civilized world. Companies were being formed 
everywhere. * California was the only topic of in- 
terest. The question of how to get there was a 
knotty one; there were no railroads, and the 
Rocky Mountains, with an intervening, desolate, 
unexplored barren waste, offered apparently unsur- 
mountable obstacles to an overland route. There 
was no course other than a voyage around Cape 
Horn — a six to ten months' trip — or across the 
Isthmus of Panama, taking the chances of a vessel 
from that point — at that time a bye place rarely 
visited by sailing vessels. There were not vessels 

* Files of New York papers for those days show the wide ex- 
tent of this fever. Horace Greeley's Tribune, then eight years 
old, had a standing headline " The Golden Chronicle, " con- 
tinued regularly on the first page, and each time filling about 
two columns with accounts of companies that were being organ- 
ized in cities and small villages all over the Union. 

222 



A FORTY-NINER SEEKING GOLD. 

enough afloat to take the multitude anxious to 
make the venture. 

A comic entertainment was put on the stage of 
one of the New York theatres in Broadway shoe- 
ing " Mose trying to go to California.* I witnessed 
its performance while waiting to sail for the 
Isthmus with the company to which I was at- 
tached. It was exceedingly amusing. "Mose," 
the leading character, was so strikingly like one of 
our company that we dubbed him " Mose " and he 
is still known by that name by the old members of 
the company, five of whom are still living. We 
have for several years had an annual meeting and 
a barbecued lamb dinner in a very romantic lo- 
cality in Connecticut, beside a charming sheet of 
water, called Compounce Pond, under a high steep 
ledge of granite rocks, where we meet, with a few 
choice friends, and renew our experience in Cali- 
fornia gold digging. 

Our company as organized consisted of eight 
men afterward taking in two more, one of whom 
was "Mose. " We hada capital of $4,000 invested 
in part in an outfit, including a years 1 supply of 
provisions, and a twenty gallon cask of brandy 
which we kept full by putting in water whenever a 
draft was made upon it. We finally sold that 

* It was a panorama showing " California and the Gold Dig- 
gings " and had been introduced as a feature in the representa- 
tion of a voyage around the world. Smith and Parkhurst were 
the proprietors. The entertainment was given at the Minerva 
Rooms No. 406 Broadway. 

223 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES* 

brandy and water in Sacramento for $108. The 
original cost was $20.* We bought our tickets 
in New York for passage from Panama to San 
Francisco, on the steamer California f on her 
second trip from Panama. She was the first 
steamer sent out from New York by the Pacific 
Mail Steamship Company to San Francisco, and 
was billed to be due at Panama the 1st day of 
March, 1849, to make her second trip. 

We took passage from New York on a sailing 
vessel, her name " Abrasia " — which was sent down 
by the Panama Railroad Compaq' with supplies 
for making the preliminary survey of the road now 
running across the Isthmus, t She was lightly 
loaded with freight and the members of our com- 
pany were the only passengers. We had a bounc- 

*On the company's books, now in possession of the treas- 
urer's son, A. H. Dresser of Plainville, Connecticut, appear 
other items of credit for sales as follows : one-half barrel of pork, 
$14; butchers' knives, $77.50; 2 bottles of mustard, $3.75; 
beads and finger rings, $39.00; 1 basket champagne, $45.00; 
one case of gin, $40.00; one case of claret, $27.00; 18% 
pounds of pork, $18.25. 

fThe California had reached Panama on her first trip Janu- 
ary 30, 1849. She had accommodations for a few more than 
one hundred, but took on board over four hundred and left be- 
hind many more. Steerage tickets were sold as high as $1,000. 
Many persons were glad to find beds in coils of rope. The 
steamer reached the harbor of San Francisco on February 28, 
" a day forever memorable in the annals of the State," says 
Bancroft 

X The company sailed from New York on February 23d. The 
Abrasia was a brig. For some years before the discovery 
of gold the Panama railroad scheme had been in process of 

224 



A TERRIFIC STORM AT SEA. 

ing trip. The second day out from New York, just 
after striking the Gulf Stream, we encountered a 
terrific storm of wind and rain which lasted five 
days, the wind blowing right in our teeth and one 
day it was so violent that we were obliged to run 
on our back track 150 miles, under bare poles. 

The most striking demonstration of man's power- 
lessness and complete subjection to the mercy of 
the elements that I ever witnessed was on the day 
above mentioned — the wind blowing a hurricane 
with rain in sheets. As far in the misty distance as 
the eye could discern, was a vessel scudding under 
bare poles, and not a living soul was to be seen. 
The situation was anything but pleasant for green 
landsmen ; not one of the passengers failed to pay 
his tribute to old Neptune in an involuntary effort 
to turn himself inside out. 

As soon as it became evident that the captain 
knew his business and was attending to it, we 
buried our fears and really enjoyed the excitement. 
I was awakened one night by the captain swearing 
a perfect torrent of oaths. He had gone out on 
deck, as was his custom through the night, to see 
that ever3 r thing was all right. He had nothing on 

getting born. That discovery at once accomplished the under- 
taking. Capital now was easily found and early in 1849, engin- 
eers were despatched to make the surveys and locate the land. 
This railroad became an enormously profitable enterprise and so 
remained until railroads were built across the continent further 
north. It was finally sold to the Canal Company originated by 
Ferdinand De Lesseps for some #20,000 000. 
is 225 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

but his shirt. Just as he reached the deck from his 
stateroom door a tremendous wave dashed over 
the vessel, drenching him thoroughly. It would 
be useless to attempt giving a description of the 
torrent which poured out of his mouth, but I 
laughed until my sides ached. Several years after- 
wards I met him at the United States Hotel in New 
York and reminded him of the storm. He told me 
it was one of the worst he had ever encountered. 

We reached Chagres* on the Atlantic side of the 
Isthmus on the thirteenth day from New York, 
when we embarked on a little steamboat which 
had been sent down to navigate the Chagres river, f 
Could that stream, with its banks an inpenetrable 
mass of vegetation, lofty trees covered with vines 
hanging in festoons with myriads of flowers of all 
colors, besides monkeys, parrots, paraquets, and 
many other birds making a perfect babel of song 
and chattering, bewildering to the northern ear — 
could it be easily reached by only a day or two of 
travel from New York, it would attract thousands 

* After the Panama railroad was built Chagres ceased to 
have commercial importance and fell into decay, Aspinwall — 
twelve miles distant — having become the terminus of the rail- 
road. 

- f The Chagres river is about thirty miles long. After the 
Trinidad flows into it, its depth is from 16 to 30 feet. Naviga- 
tion of its upper part is interfered with by cataracts and rap 
ids. It flows through a country of extraordinary fertility. The 
fever which takes its name from this stream is well known for 
it* severity. From an attack of it. Dr. Halsey — as described 
further on — came near losing his life. 

226 



CHAGRES AND GORGONA. 

of visitors. * At the head of navigation we were 
transferred to large dug-outs or canoes, manned by 
two natives with long poles, to take us to Gor- 
gonat some twelve miles higher up the stream. 
These boatmen were stripped entirely naked for 
this work and every few rods would run their ca- 
noes on to a sandy shore, dive into the water and 
swim around until cooled off. We paid them fifty 
cents each for poling us twelve miles against the 
current. A Real ( 10 cents ) was a day's wages be- 
fore the advent of California travel across the 
Isthmus. 

Being ahead of time for the steamer we put up 
our tent at Gorgona, sent our Captain over to 
Panama — about 24 miles — to the agent of the 
steamship company for information. The Chagres 
river was simply alive with fish. When we threw 
in a handful of crumbs the water would fairlv boil 



* Julius H. Pratt, who went up the river several weeks after 
Dr. Halsey, says in the Century magazine for April, 1891 : 
" The liver was broad and its bank low and covered with an 
impenetrable jungle. As night came on the stillness and dark- 
ness of that tropical wilderness were very impressive. The 
boatmen chanted monotonous songs to the dip of the oar and 
wild beasts on the shore responded with savage howls." 

t The reasons for stopping at Gorgona instead of proceeding 
on to Cruces appear from a statement in Bancroft's " Central 
America "that early in 1848 cholera had broken out "in a ma- 
lignant form " following the hurried crowds up the river and 
striking down victims by the score. Such was the death rate 
at Cruces, the head of navigation, that the second current of 
immigrants stopped at Gorgona in affright, thence to hasten 
away from the smitten river course. 

227 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

from their efforts to secure them, but if you baited 
a hook they would not touch it. We exhausted all 
plans for catching them. We had a net in our 
outfit 150 feet long, and thought that it would 
work ; we got it out and strung it ; got two boats 
and launched them into the water. Then we sur- 
rounded a host of fish and could we have landed 
them I have no doubt we would have had two 
wagon loads at least, but with three men to each 
rope, before we could get to the shore the fish be- 
gan to jump over the cork line exactly like a flock 
of sheep over a stone wall ; we secured only a few, 
perhaps a dozen. 

Gorgona was at that time a village of perhaps 
fifty huts, standing on a beautiful plateau at an 
elevation of fifteen or twenty feet above low water 
mark. We remained there two weeks, then starting 
for Panama — distant 24 miles. All freight had to 
be packed on mules or natives' backs. Tt was sur- 
prising the loads those natives would shoulder and 
not lie down until they reached their destination. 
They had a rack made of reeds to which the freight 
was lashed ; when it had been placed on the 
shoulders a strap was passed around the points of 
shoulders and chest, and another around the fore- 
head. I saw a large trunk, which weighed 225 
pounds, thus lashed to a native and he started on 
a lope for Panama, which he reached next day 
without la} T ing it down as the owner told me after- 
ward. The road was simply a trail such as cattle 
228 



FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC. 

make, very rough and rocky, making it very tedi- 
ous to travel with a load. We were a part of 
two days on the route across, reaching Panama* 
on Sunday afternoon. 

The first view I had of the Pacific ocean as it 
makes inland some 600 miles to form Panama Bay 
was a memorable event to me. The sea was as 
smooth as glass with not a ripple, and the reflec- 
tion of the sun's rays from the west giving the 
water a rich yellow appearance, made an impres- 
sion that I shall never lose. My attention has 
since been called to some famous lines by the poet 
Keats on the discovery of the Pacific by the Span- 
iards. Keats says that when he first read Chap- 
man's translation of Homer he felt 

" Like stout Cortez f when with eagle eyes 

He stared at the Pacific and all his men 
Looked at each other with a wild surmise 

Silent upon a peak in Darien." 

Our messenger whom we had sent ahead, finding 
that we were fated to be held there for an indefinite 
period, had secured rooms where we could live and 
we moved in at once. The house, a two-story stone 

* Panama is the oldest European city on the American con- 
tinent. For centuries it was the great entrepot for Spanish 
trade with China and India. Its annals go back to 1518 when 
the old city was founded by Pedra Rias Pavila. In 1670 it was 
destroyed by the buccaneers under Morgan and when rebuilt a 
new site six miles distant was chosen. 

t Keats's error here is famous. It was not Cortez who dis- 
covered the Pacific, but Balboa. 

229 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

building, belonged to the governor of the state. 
His residence was on a corner of the plaza, and 
our house was opposite. He offered the building 
entire to us for 150 dollars or to rent for two doll- 
ars a day. This will give an idea of the value 
of real estate at that time. A large three story 
building standing on the main street was bought 
that spring for 300 dollars and opened as the 
"American Hotel." It is still run as a hotel as I 
have noticed in the news from there. 

As I have before mentioned, the city up to the 
California gold excitement had had for many years 
a location on the map but no business; in fact 
grass was growing in the streets. The English 
government had a line of steamships trading with 
South American governments, on the Pacific side, 
which came monthly to Panama to unload and 
pack their ingots of silver on mules' backs to cross 
the Isthmus, to be reshipped for England. I saw 
two cargoes of ingots landed; there were 150 or 
200 ingots, shaped like a capital V, and weighing 
150 pounds each. They were guarded across by 
soldiers. 

The city was then surrounded by a heavy wall 
12 to 14 feet high, laid in cement as hard as stone. 
On the water side it was built on the bed rock so 
far out that the tide coming in had pounded holes 
through the wall. There were two gates for in- 
gress and egress, one the main gate from the land 
side, the other on the water side. Just inside the 
-230 



THE WALLS AND CATHEDRAL OF PANAMA. 

main gate and facing it was a nice little stone 
building having but one room; inside was a life 
size image of the Virgin Mary, beautifully dressed, 
with diamonds sparkling all about her breast. 
She stood on an elevated platform — at her feet a 
pretty box for contributions. It is a Catholic 
country and every person on coming into the city 
was expected to pass into the room, kneel before 
the Virgin in an attitude of prayer for a moment 
or two, throw in his mite and go about his busi- 
ness. The priests removed the offerings at inter- 
vals. 

Gambling and cock fighting, the latter on Sunday 
afternoon after services when even the clergy were 
to be seen, with an occasional mock bull fight 
outside the walls were the leading amusements. I 
saw a man who was tantalizing a bull with a red 
rag, caught on its horns and hurled against a stone 
building, apparently killed, but he finally came to 
himself and walked off. 

There was a large cathedral with several 
churches. The cathedral was never closed. I was 
there during Lent and Passion Week and the dis- 
plays were simply gorgeous — processions by day 
and torch light ones b}^ night, the entire popula- 
tion in line, bare headed. One night the Virgin was 
placed upon a raised three step platform, and car- 
ried about the streets on men's backs. I counted 
180 wax candles eighteen inches in length, enclosed 
under glass resting on the steps of the platiorm, a 
231 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

beautiful sight. Apostles and Saints had proces- 
sions making rich displays. 

Palm Sunday was a noisy one; even- individual 
native had his whistle, made of palm leaf and 
there were thousands of shrill toots, until in the 
middle of the afternoon, a procession appeared es- 
corting an image of Christ, with His crown of 
thorns, astride an ass, a large number of the clergy 
with banners being in advance, and they preceded 
by a bevy of 4-0 or 50 little girls, dressed in white, 
with their arms full of flowers, scattering them as 
they walked, and all singing. The next morning a 
rope was stretched across the street, with an im- 
age of Judas hanging b\ T the neck, and every passer 
by hurling some missile at him. I was strolling one 
day behind a church building and saw a hole in 
the wall some four feet from the ground ; on look- 
ing in I saw deep down, perhaps 10 or 12 feet, 
small human bones. On inquiry I was told they 
were the bones of still-born infants who died un- 
baptised and were thrown in with quick lime to 
destroy the soft parts. 

I walked one da} r out to the cemetery which is 
nearly a mile outside the walls. There was an acre 
of ground surrounded by a wall of 8 feet or more 
thick and 10 or more high, laid in cement. On the 
inside were three tiers of openings in the wall large 
enough to admit a coffin. The dead were placed 
in a nice coffin, dressed as the circumstances of the 
friends could afford, covered with a profusion of 
232 



A STRANGE CEMETERY. 

flowers, carried in state to the cemetery, then 
stripped of everything, put in a tight rough box, 
the box filled with quick lime and finally pushed 
into the opening in the wall and sealed up with 
cement. After a proper interval, to allow the soft 
parts to be destroyed by the action of the lime 
and when the hole was wanted for another, it was 
opened and the contents, bones and all, emptied on 
the ground and another body put in. The ground 
was covered with bones. I picked up a human jaw- 
bone which must have belonged to a giant ; it was 
more than twice as. large as any one I ever saw 
before or since. I brought it home as a curiosity 
and loaned it to William Johnston, of Sidney, an 
eccentric man decended from the pre-Revolution- 
ary pioneer of the same name, and he forgot to 
return it. 

The water for the city was all brought in on the 
heads of women, in earthen crocks holding three 
gallons and sold for 10 cents a crock; the spring 
was the best part of a mile outside the city, walled 
up nicely, and ran about a half inch stream as I 
remember it. The tide comes in at Panama 23 feet 
twice a day, while on the Atlantic side at Chagres 
one would hardly notice that there was a tide. 
The places are only 50 miles apart. This is an 
anomaly I have never seen explained to my satis- 
faction ; there must be some other than the moon 
theory I think. 

When the tide is out at Panama one can go out 
233 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

on the rocks two miles, but he must look out for 
the incoming tide. I was out one day looking for 
shells very busily ; when I looked up I was nearly 
surrounded by water; you may rest assured I ran 
for life once certainly ; I could not get into the city 
but got out of the water about a quarter of a mile 
down the coast. * 

We had arrived in Panama the first of March 
and expected to meet the steamer California for 
which we had tickets. She failed to appear on ac- 
count of her crew deserting her on her first arrival 
at San Francisco ; the result was we were obliged 
to lie there until the Panama which left New York 
the same morning we did, and aboard which we 
were now to sail, came around the cape and reached 
Panama when the agent of the steamship company 
put us aboard her. It was estimated that there 
were 3,000 people from the States in Panama 
awaiting vessels to proceed to California. The 
condition became more and more alarming as the 
detention and increase of people increased the con- 
gestion. Sickness was very prevalent, funerals 
were of daily occurrence, a plot for a cemetery had 
to be purchased and it was rapidly filled. Many 
having but little money soon found themselves 
without means for living and with no prospect of 
getting away they took the back track and re- 
rurned home. 

* Some of the shells he gathered on that occasion are still 
preserved at the family home in Unadilla. 

234 



DESPERATE TIMES IN PANAMA. 

The excitement increased daily and so desperate 
became the situation that had not vessels appeared 
just as they did I think there would have risen a 
riot that would have perhaps destroyed the city ; 
in fact there were several outbreaks which were 
quelled with difficulty. * The demonstrations of joy 
made upon the arrival of the steamer Panama and 
a sailing ship the Humboldt t were as cheering as 
the previous excitement was alarming. The in- 
tense heat on the Isthmus— the thermometer stand- 
ing at 100 daily— was very trying to northern 
people, unless protected under the shade. Being 
nearly under the Equator exposure to the direct 

* Men who reached Panama late in the spring fared still 
worse. One of these was Collis P. Huntington who had come 
from Oneonta, where he had been for several years a prosper- 
ous village merchant. In October of the previous year, with 
the merchant's keen appreciation of prices as affected by a 
larger demand and small supply, he had sent out to San Fran- 
cisco a cargo of goods by way of Cape Horn, with the inten- 
tion of following himself in the spring by the Panama route. 
He sailed from New York on March 15, 1849, an d on reaching 
Panama was obliged to spend three months waiting for a 
steamer. During this enforced leisure he walked twenty times 
across the Isthmus and by various transactions in trade added 
several thousand dollars to his possessions He finally set sail 
from Panama aboard the sailing ship Humboldt in company 
with about four hundred othei persons. He did not go to the 
mines but engaged in trade in San Francisco where he made 
the acquaintance of Mark Hopkins, with whom he formed a 
partnership, the latter history of which is now a part of the 
history of the industrial development of this country. 

f Mr. Pratt, who sailed aboard the Humboldt, in a Century 
article describes the class of passengers with whom he asso- 
ciated " We found," he says, " a promiscous crowd from ev- 

235 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

rays will strike one blind, but the cool trade winds 
from off the salt water, with quiet in the shade, 
relieve the oppression so completely, that reclining 
in a hammock with an interesting book became a 
luxury. 

The natives are of mixed blood made up of Span- 
ish, Negroes, and Indians and are a very strong 
athletic race. The language is a corrupt Spanish 
and in tone and expression charmingly beautiful. 
I was frequently stopped on hearing parties in con- 
versation ; there was so much excitement and em- 
phasis that I looked next for blows and knock 
downs. The people are very friendly in manner 
but quick to resent an insult. They are free and 
unsuspecting in conversation. What would be de- 
nounced here as highly indecorous and improper is 
unnoticed. As an instance I recall that one day a 
nicely dressed lady was passing whose maternal 
ambition was soon to be gratified. I tipped my 
hat saying " Senora, pickaniny poco tempo ? " She 
replied "Si Senor " and was as far from showing 
any expression of false modesty as though I had 
inquired the time of day. Children of both sexes 



ery nation under heaven, the predominating type being that of 
the American rough. The deck was so densely packed with 
men from stem to stern that we could scarcely move. Many 
were prostrate with sickness or supported by friends or lying 
in hammocks swung along the side rigging. All day long this 
crowd of men were seathing, swaying, quarrelling and cursing. 
No food was provided, and hunger and thirst gave an edge to 
the bad passionsof the mob." 

236 



AT LAST WE SAIL AWAY. 

up to 10 or 12 years are seen everywhere entirely 
naked, and pass unnoticed. The female dress is 
very picturesque and beautiful being made of light 
material with great profusion of ruffles and laces. 

Without intending in the least to detract from 
the fame of our own beautiful sisters of the north, 
I must in truth say that the handsomest, most 
queenly and dignified woman I ever saw was a full 
blooded Spanish lady, who entered the cathedral 
at Panama one morning, at early mass, followed 
by her female servant carrying a handsome piece of 
carpeting for her mistress to kneel upon during her 
devotional service. 

On the appearance of the "Panama" the local 
agent notified us to get aboard at once and we 
were not long in complying. Our detention had 
obliged us to pay in rent for the building we occu- 
pied money enough to have paid for the title as 
offered hy the owner. Our Captain engaged a five 
ton dug-out, with two natives to take us and the 
outfit to the steamer which was lying at anchor 
six miles out in the bay. As I think of that day's 
trip to the steamer a shiver will run over me to this 
day. We were loaded almost to the water's edge, 
with but one sail, the wind strong in our teeth. 
We were obliged to start while the tide was com- 
ing in so as to reach deep water before the tide 
could leave us stranded on the rocks, and had to 
tack and beat against the wind and the inrushing 
tide for several hours until it changed to the oppo- 
237 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

site direction. We embarked about 8 o'clock a. m. 
and only reached the steamship after dark; thus 
the entire day was spent in a six miles' straight 
line voyage; why we were not capsized has always 
been a mystery, loaded as we were and frequently 
flooded with water from the waves. The boat re- 
quired almost constant bailing. 

A very exciting incident occurred soon after our 
arrival on board. A difficulty had arisen between 
two ladies on their arrival at Panama. One was 
the wife of a distinguished Government officer, sta- 
tioned in California to whom she was going. She is 
still living and somewhat famous. The other was 
a lady of equal social rank who had been the head 
of a prominent temperance organization in Phila- 
delphia. She was possessed of stinted means and 
was anxious to emigrate to California to improve 
her financial condition. She had arranged with 
the first named lad} r to travel with her asa " com- 
panion," her passage and other expenses being 
furnished as compensation. On their arrival at 
Panama the first named lady registered at the 

American Hotel as Mrs. and servant, to which 

the other took prompt exception, rightfully claim- 
ing that she was an equal in status as "compan- 
ion " and should not be ranked as servant. The 
excitement among the Americans, whose numbers 
were estimated at 3,000, was very great, the sym- 
pathy being with the companion lady. 

When the boats, or dug-outs containing the two 
238 



MUTINOUS IN A GOOD CAUSE. 

ladies, arrived at the steamship, the commander, 
Capt. Bailey,* who had evidently been apprised of 
the trouble, refused to allow the second lady to get 
aboard. The passengers, who all understood the 
case, arose en masse and insisted, that having a 
ticket for passage, she must and should be allowed 
to go. The Captain, seeing the determined feeling, 
yielded, but declared she should have neither a 
stateroom, which her ticket entitled her to, nor a 
berth— no sleeping or toilet facilities whatever. 
The vessel was a side-wheel steamer, and a bridge 
called the hurricane deck spanned across from the 
boiler deck to the wheel house. Underneath this 
bridge the passengers were allowed to put a tem- 
porary berth, where she could lie protected from 
rain, but over her head was a shelf used as a catch- 
all for bolts, pieces of iron, etc. 

* Captain Bailey had succeeded D. D. Porter, afterwards 
Admiral of the Navy, in command of the Panama, but Porter 
was aboard the ship on this voyage. Others on board who 
were to reach eminence in various callings were John B. 
Weller, William W. Gwin, afterwards United States Senator, 
from California; Jessie Benton, daughter of Thomas H. 
Benton, and the wife of John C. Fremont; Joseph Hooker, af- 
terwards known as "Fighting Joe Hooker;" William H. Em- 
ory, afterwards a general; H?ll McAllister, brother of Ward 
McAllister, and Lieutenant Derby, the humorist who wrote 
under the name of " Phoenix." 

Porter was then thirty-six years old and had made a good 
record in the Mexican war. Hooker was a year older and his 
rank was that of assistant-adjutant general. G win had been in 
Congress nine years, but was yet to earn that title of Duke 
which came from his relations to Louis Napoleon in Mexico. 
Admiral Porter died on February 13, 1891, four days before the 

239 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

One night the vessel was rolling badly and a 
large iron bo4t rolled off striking the sleeping lady. 
At first she was supposed to be dead. She was 
married and the result of the injury was a prema- 
ture confinement. The Captain barbarously re- 
fused to allow the ship's surgeon to attend her, and 
a physician from New York was selected from 
among the passengers to officiate. She recovered 
after a dangerous illness, caused by unavoidable 
exposure, and reached San Francisco where she 
opened a first-class boarding house, and prospered 
as long as I knew anything of her. A few years 
after this incident the newspapers announced the 
death of Captain Baile\% from cholera. I know of 
one of those passengers who threw up his hat and 
cried for joy on hearing the news. 

I should add here that after the vessel got out to 
sea a meeting of the passengers was called to make 
an authorative statement of affairs to send back 
to the east for publication. When we had assem- 
bled however the Captain came on deck and or- 
dered us to disperse or he would bring his guns — 
two cannons, one on each side the deck — to bear 
upon us, run his ship into the first port he came to, 
and declare a state of mutiny. Of course we 
could only submit. 

The voyage up the Pacific was a delightful one. 

writer of these Reminiscences. The Panama remained for 
many years in active service between San Francisco and other 
Pacific ports. In 1876 she was a store ship at Acapulco. 

240 



SHORT OF FOOD AND COAL. 

The water was as smooth as glass with not a 
ripple to break its mirror-like surface — nothing 
but an undulating, regular swell, like the pulsa- 
tions of the human heart. We were in sight of 
land nearly all the way. The mountain scenery, 
although so distant, was grand with the coast 
range of mountains, rising skyward thousands of 
feet, peak after peak, occasionally a nearly extinct 
volcano belching forth smoke, and all covered with 
a forest of dark, perpetual green. My only fear 
was that being so near the coast, we might run 
onto a sunken rock. 

Aside from the view of the coast the voyage was 
devoid of interest. Occasionally whales were seen 
at a distance, blowing water as the} r came to the 
surface to breathe. We had a fine view of one which 
came alongside the vessel, within 30 feet, as I 
remember it. He plaj^ed around the ship several 
minutes, finally diving and throwing his tail high 
in the air. A number of blackfish — a fish weighing 
I judged from 600 to 1000 pounds— followed in the 
wake of the vessel, for several daj^s, apparently 
seeking the refuse as it was thrown overboard. 

Three days before the trip ended it was announced 
that our provisions were giving out and we would 
have to submit to close rations. The coal was 
also giving out; in fact ever3 r thing that would 
burn, oil, pork, resin and every surplus spar, was 
used up. We were reduced to sour krout for the 
last meal we had on board, the morning we entered 

16 241 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

San Francisco Bay. I have often wondered why I 
escaped death from eating that meal. I was very 
hungry from the short rations, and I don't think I 
ever enjoyed a meal better. I must have stowed 
away at least a quart with no bad result. 

The only stop we made was at San Diego where 
the Bay is quite large, but I judged shallow, the 
entrance so narrow that one could almost have 
jumped ashore from the vessel. Cape St. Lucas is 
usually a very windy locality, similar to Cape Hat- 
teras on the Atlantic; it blew very strong when 
we rounded it and at that point we passed through 
what appeared to be oil, very offensive and foul 
smelling, covering a large area of water — and 
supposed to have come from a burned whale ship. 

The entrance of San Francisco Bay, the Golden 
Gate and the bay itself, are marvelous works of 
nature. The "gate "is narrow, perhaps 200 feet 
wide— just a gap out of solid rock, rising perpen- 
dicularly upon each side perhaps some hundreds 
of feet. When we passed through, the tide was 
going out with a velocity, bewildering and fright- 
ful to behold. It did not seem possible that our 
vessel could move in the current but she proudly 
walked through, like a strong sea monster. As she 
was entering the bay what a marvelous scene was 
presented to the eye — a vast expanse of fathomless 
water running sixty miles north and sixty south 
from the gate and thus one hundred and twenty 
miles in length and having an average of ten miles 
242 



ARRIVAL IN THE GOLDEN GATE. 

of width. This reservoir of two mighty rivers — 
the Sacramento and San Juaquin — draining the en- 
tire country west of the Sierra Nevada range of 
mountains, has all to be emptied into the ocean 
through that narrow "gate," and is truly one of 
the greatest marvels on the globe. The entire float- 
ing war vessels of the world could find anchorage 
with room for more. How strange that all this 
wonderful arrangement of nature for the benefit 
of man should have lain idle, and comparatively of 
no benefit, until it came into the possession of 
Yankee enterprise and of a nation the youngest in 
history and then hardly out of its teens. With 
what rapidity it has arisen in importance within 
the past forty years. Has blind chance caused 
this marvelous advancement ? 

The Bristol and California Co. the name of our 
mining association was made up of the following 
members : George W. Bartholomew, manager, Wel- 
lington Winston and Isaac Pierce of Bristol, Conn., 
Jared Goodrich, Andrew Jackson Norton, A. L. 
Dodge, Geo. W. Dresser, Eldridge Atkins, and the 
writer, all of Plainville, Conn. Bartholmew, Pierce, 
Goodrich, Norton, Dodge, with the writer are still 
alive, the writer being the youngest except Dodge. 
To Norton I am doubtless indebted for my life and 
ability thus to make a public record of our story ; 
further history of this fact in detail will be given 
later on and I will simply say here that a more 
noble-hearted, self-sacrificing man never lived. 
243 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

May the declining years of "Capt. Dick" be as 
peaceful and happy, as he deserves to have them. 

Large vessels, like the " Panama," had to anchor 
three miles from shore in the bay ; passengers and 
freight were sent ashore in lighters. This shallow 
water has now been done away with by filling in 
and docking out to deep water so that the busi- 
ness portion of the city of San Francisco stands 
now where then was water. 



244 



SAN FRANCISCO AND 
SACRAMENTO. 

1849. 

The city of San Francisco* then had perhaps a 
hundred board shanties and cloth tents scattered 
about. We arrived the fourth day of June and when 
we returned from the gold diggings the next October 
there were blocks of buildings, three and four sto- 
ries high, a busy city of 15,000 inhabitants as es- 
timated. The most prominent business was 
gambling. Thousands of dollars, yes hundreds of 
thousands, in gold dust, I have seen lying upon the 
table awaiting the turn of a single card or the 

wheel, f 

A gambler came into the diggings where we were 
and opened a dive. I saw him on winning a pile 

*By the census of 1890 SanFrancisco had a population of 
297,900. 

+ The gambling tents in the mining towns became the princi- 
pal place! of resort. One of these tents later on paid a rental 
of $40,000 a year and $20,000 was known to be staked on the 
issue of a game of cards. A two-story frame building chiefly 
used for gambling purposes rented for $120,000 a year. A 
building known as the Parker House, at one time rented for 
$i7,oo?amonth. It was then sublet for gambling purposes 
and made to return a handsome profit above the original lease. 
245 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

made up of ten cent pieces, scrape them off the 
table and throw them, in disgust, out into the 
brush as too small a matter to spend his time with. 
Coins of ten cents were comparatively of the same 
value there as the cent is here for the reason that 
they would buy no more ; in fact there was noth- 
ing on sale, from a drink of poisonous whiskey up, 
for less than one dollar. Flour, corn meal, dried 
fruit, sugar, onions, etc., etc., were a dollar a 
pound. Consequently fractional money was a nui- 
sance. When we "went into the diggings our freight 
from Sacramento cost one dollar per pound. The 
result of such prices was that thousands of dollars 
worth of outfits were thrown away ; storage for a 
common trunk was three dollars per month and 
everything else was in proportion. A rag picker, 
junk and old clothes man could have found his 
paradise in the streets of San Francisco and Sac- 
ramento in those days. * 

We put up our tent in San Francisco and re- 
mained a week before we obtained a chance to 
reach Sacramento, vessels being very scarce. We 
finally found a thirty ton sloop which was about 

* Prices fluctuated greatly in the years 1848-49-50, due to 
the inflexible rule of supply and demand. The highest prices 
appear to have been reached just before the first steamer ar- 
rived. Bancroft says flour sold as high as $800 a barrel. 
Sugar and coffee were $400 a barrel; a shovel, pair of boots or 
gallon of whiskey and many other things were $100 each. Eggs 
sold for $3 apiece, A doctor charged $100 or #50 or nothing 
for a visit. Cooks earned #25 a day. Butter was $6 a pound, 
and ale $8 a bottle. Mr. Pratt spent the winter of 1849-50 on 

246 



AGAIN IN WANT OF A SHIP. 

to make the trip loaded with freight ; we started 
late in the afternoon, the vessel loaded so near the 
water's edge that the waves would throw water 
through the scupper holes on to the deck. The 
captain was a sleep}' thick headed fellow, evidently 
a chance "pick up" for the trip, with an equally 
intelligent crew of three. There was no system or 
discipline, every one doing just as he pleased. I 
have often wondered why we were not swamped 
and drowned before we reached the mouth of the 
Sacramento river. * 

It would take a more alluring excitement than 
gold digging to induce me to undertake a like trip; 
in fact the whole enterprise from the outset was a 
fearfully reckless one, whatever the route taken, 
around the Cape, across the Isthmus, or overland. 
It is no wonder that disasters, deaths and total 
failures were far, far in excess of the successes, t For- 

the coast and gives figures to show the cost of living. He sold 
for #400 a cooking stove that cost him #60. A good workman 
could demand $16 a day. Boots that cost him #6 in New York 
would bring $100, and revolvers costing $20 would bring $150. 
A chicken could be sold for $16. Lumber brought £500 a 
thousand feet, but in the following year when mills had been 
started and the market overstocked he bought enough lumber 
to build a warehouse for the bare cost of freight. 

*In August, 1849, small vessels were so scarce that io,oco or 
12,000 persons were waiting in San Francisco for the means by 
which to reach the mines up and beyond the Sacramento. 

t Mr. Bancroft affirms that " the great majority of diggers 
obtained little more than the means to live at the prevailing 
high prices, and many not even that. In 1852 the average 

247 



DR. GAILS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

tunately we induced the captain to cast anchor 
near the head of the bay for the remainder of the 
night. The next morning we sailed along up the 
river very nicely until we reached what was called 
the "sleugh" a stretch of deep, still water five miles 
long, having but little current. On the left bank 
was a thick forest of large, tall trees, the right bank 
being swampy and called Tulare Swamp. The lat- 
ter was covered with bull rushes large enough for 
fish rods, 10 to 15 feet long, and gallinippers or 
mosquitoes were as large as horseflies and came in 
clouds. It was impossible to protect one's self. 
The}' would think nothing of the pantaloon leg as 
an obstruction to their voracity. 

The trees on the left bank being higher than our 
sloop's mast, the wind could not reach our sails — 
the north west trade winds blew from that direc- 
tion — consequently the vessel had to be warped up 
through the five miles; that is, a large rope 
shipped into a small boat which all vessels carry 
for emergencies was drawn out its full length, fast- 
ened to a tree and then all hands began to pull at 
the other end. Thus the vessel by main strength 
was forced up to the tree. We then anchored and 
paid out the cable for another stretch. Three 
members of the crew were unable to perform the 
task, and consequently we who were passengers 

yield in cash for the 100,000 men engaged in mining was only 
$600, or barely $2 a day, while wages for common laborers 
were twice or three times as much." 

248 



WARPING IP THE SACRAMENTO RIVER. 

liad to do the work. At night we would tie up the 
ship, go ashore, build a big fire, get a meal, roll up 
in our blankets with our feet as near the fire as 
possible and sleep, the fire giving partial protec- 
tion from the gallinippers. 

We were five days warping through the "sleugh." 
When we again got wind, every man was a fearful 
yet comical sight, face and hands swollen from the 
bites of the insects beyond recognition, eyes nearly 
closed, fingers and hands looking like small pump- 
kins with sticks in them. We were so long in get- 
ting through the warping that our provisions gave 
out and starvation was showing his grinning teeth 
very forcibly, but fortunately a boat passed us 
one day; it had no provisions to spare, but the 
captain informed us there was a camp of wood- 
choppers about two miles off; we sent out a com- 
mittee of exploration; they were gone so long 
that we began to fear thej r had become lost in the 
forest, but they finally came in just at dark with 
several pounds of pork for which they paid two 
dollars a pound ; all now was serene again. 

I think the handsomest sight I ever beheld was 
while we were laboring so hard pulling our little 
vessel by main force up stream inch b}' inch. A 
large full rigged ship with every sail set and bend- 
ing to the wind hove in sight several miles below 
us, the water flying in sheets from her prow. She 
moved along like a giant as she approached us and 
passed us as a thing of life, loaded with passen- 
249 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

gers, her captain in full dress pacing the deck giv- 
ing his orders with all the dignity of an autocrat 
as he was. She soon passed us and was out of 
sight in a few moments, leaving us poor devils ex- 
erting our muscles to force our little craft inch by 
inch. Had our safety depended entirely upon my 
efforts I could not have used them while that mag- 
nificent scene was before us : my imagination was, 
and is to-day, so charmed with its soul inspiring 
beauty that I was completely overwhelmed with 
the scene and was unconscious of our condition. 
It was the most striking "because of the great con- 
trast between the conditions of the two vessels. 

When we finally arrived at Sacramento that ship 
was moored to the bank with her sails all furled. 
I went aboard of her one day to take a good look 
at her and whom should I run against but Vincent 
Page of Unadilla, sitting on a stool cleaning up 
his gun. Through him I learned of R. G. Mead, 
Charles Smith, Henry Wright and others. * 

* Edmund B. Birch, a brother of Albert G. Birch of Una- 
dilla, went to California in 1849, making the overland trip by 
way of Council Bluffs. Lyman Birch, another brother, started 
by the Panama route, but engaged to work for the railroad at 
Panama, then offering large inducements to labor which was 
scarce. Mr. Birch was taken ill with fever and returned home. 

Other names micjht be added to show the extent to which the 
gold fever reached this part of the Susquehanna Valley. 
Some twenty-five or thirty men in the neighborhood of Oneonta 
besought Collis P. Huntington to accept the leadership of a 
company formed by them to go into the mines, but Mr. Hunt- 
ingion — wise man that he was — declined the offer and shipped 
a load of goods instead, realizing handsome profits on them. 

250 



MEN FROM UNADILLA FOUND. 

Sacramento when we landed was a city in name 
only ; there were only two board shanties, one be- 
ing a store house for dry hides collected for ship- 
ment and market, the only business in the country 
previous to the gold excitement. The plot of land 
embraced in the city limits was originally owned 
by that old and now famous settler, Captain Sut- 
ter, who had a large ranch under a title from the 
Mexican Government. His residence was sur- 
rounded by a heavy wall for protection against 
attacks from Indians. In his later life he was un- 
fortunate, with irregular pursuits, and finally lost 
his estate piecemeal and died in comparative pov- 
erty.* 

Among his professed friends was "Sam" Bran- 
non, a Mormon who managed to get title to the 
section embraced in the city which numbered in 

* Sutter's Fort had been founded in 1839 by John A. Sutter, 
a native of Switzerland. Its walls were 500 feet long and 160 
feet in the other direction, with loopholes and bastions and a 
dozen cannon. Sutter was a pioneer and a great local 
magnate. In 1847 he owned 12,000 cattle, 2,000 horses, from 
10,000 to 15,000 sheep and 1,000 hogs. He employed some 
Mormons to build 1 flour mill six miles up the American river 
and forty miles up the South Fork at Colona he built a sawmill 
with its power derived through a millrace. Of all that Sacra- 
mento region he had become a sort of lord, when through the 
construction of this millrace his agent, Marshall, found what he 
believed to be gold dust. 

Sutter was sorry at the discovery, foreseeing that it threat- 
ened an interruption to all his established enterprises. Sutter, 
in fact, never realized any gain from the gold thus found by 
his own employes upon his own premises. All the current and 
direction of his life was suddenly broken and he lacked the 
251 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

population the following October, when we re- 
turned from the diggings, 10,000.* Jay Street was 
built up with imposing two and three story solid 
blocks for a long distance back from the river; 
buildings of all descriptions were springing up in 
all directions. Had our company not been blinded, 
as were nine-tenths of the men who came into the 
country, by the gold fever, we might have made 
our "pile" in three months without seeing the dig- 
gings or doing a single stroke of labor. We were 
among the first to arrive and of course knew of 
the vast multitude who were on the wa}^. 

foresight or alertness to adjust himself to new conditions. His 
employes everywhere deserted him in order to enter the 
mines. Titles to his lands, then in dispute, were lost through 
adverse decisions and he was finally reduced to want. His old 
age was at last made comfortable through a pension of #250 a 
month granted by the State of California. 

* Samuel Brannon was a native of Maine. In his youth he 
had edited Mormon journals and became an elder of that 
church. In 1846 he went to California with a shipload of Mor- 
mons, mostly converts made in the East, intending to found a 
colony. But his plans were interfered with. The country had 
already been proclaimed United States territory. San Fran- 
cisco became, however, for a time very largely a Mormon town. 
Brannon founded a newspaper in San Francisco and preached 
Mormonism on Sundays. With the finding of gold his com- 
munity was disbanded. He had quarreled with Brigham Young 
and other Utah Mormons and was denounced as an apostate 
from the faith. Becoming the owner of large tracts of land in 
San Francisco and Sacramento he exerted an influence in the 
development ot those towns and acquired large wealth. When 
the Civil War broke out he was rated the richest man in Cali- 
fornia, but his wife sued him for divorce and obtained a verdict 
which deprived him of one-half of his estate. From this blow 
he never recovered. During the struggle of Mexico against 
252 



SPLENDID CHANCES IN REAL ESTATE. 

Had we invested what little of our capital we 
had left, with running our credit as far as it would 
carry us, in real estate, we could have been ready to 
return home when I did, the following November 
with all the money necessary for any reasonable 
company of men, but the argument was that we 
had started for the diggings where gold could be 
shoveled up like wheat in the bin. I made an effort 
with my company to allow me to remain, put up a 
big cloth house, open a hospital, put out my sign 
and the}' go to the mines. I had an interview with 
Brannon and he advised carrying out the idea by 
all means, and told me to select my location— that 
I might have any lot on Ja\ r Street, now the 
Broadway of the city, for $300, and have six 
months' time for payment. I selected two adjoin- 
ing 25 foot fronts, but I could not prevail upon my 
company to release me. I was their plvysician and 
must be with them. The next October, when we 
returned for the winter from the mines these lots 
had been sold for $13,000 each and were occupied 
by fine three-story buildings. * 

We arranged to have two of our company, who 

Maximillian, he aided that country with money and supplies 
for which he afterwards received a grant of land in the Prov- 
ince of Sonora. He attempted to colonize the province but 
the scheme failed and eventually he lost all his property. Bran- 
non was born in 1819 and died in 1889 at Mazatlan, in abject 
poverty. 

*In August, 1849, the rents of single building in Sacra- 
mento reached $5,000 a month, and certain lots were valued at 
$30,000 each. 

253 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

understood butchering, remain in Sacramento and 
open a market. Just across the river was a large 
ranch devoted to raising cattle for their hides. We 
made a bargain with the owner to sell us cattle as 
we wanted them to kill at $13 per head and fur- 
nish two men to help catch and drive them to the 
slaughter house. Beef was selling at 75 cents a 
pound just as fast as it could be cut up. On the 
morning when we were to start for the mines these 
two rebelled and thus broke up our arrangements. 
After selling what of our outfit we could and 
throwing away the balance except our trunks, 
which we stored, we made a bargain with a man 
from Connecticut whom our captain accidentally 
met and recognized as formerly a professor in Yale 
College — his name I cannot recall. He had invested 
in a pair of oxen and a lumber wagon, and was 
hauling freight for a living.* We paid him one 
dollar per pound for carrying our kit on to the 
Middle Fork of the American river, or as near as 
the team could haul the load. The distance was 
estimated, I think, as 80 miles from Sacramento. 

* Mr. GiUespie, the writer of an article in the Century Cali- 
fornia series says : " Men pocketed their pride in California 
in those days. I met in the mines lawyers and physicians in 
good standing at home who were acting as barkeepers, waiters, 
hostlers and teamsters. An ex-Judge of Oyer and Terminer 
was driving an ox-team from Colona to Sacramento. One man 
who had been a State senator and Secretary of State in one of 
our Western commonwealths was doing a profitable business 
at manufacturing " cradles," while an ex-Governor of one of 
our Southwestern states played the fiddle in a gambling saloon. 
These things were hardly remarked." 
254 



ARRIVAL AT SITTER'S FAMOUS MILL. 

The party all had to walk, of course, and camp 
out at night. Except for being disturbed by the 
howling of wolves — and a big fire would keep them 
at a proper distance— camping out in the open air 
was really a luxurj r after a hard day's journey in 
the hot sun. The air, during the dry season of the 
year — seven to nine months — is devoid of moisture ; 
the regular northwest trade winds are robbed of 
all moisture while passing over the snow moun- 
tains, where it is condensed and falls as snow; 
there are no dews, but a delicious coolness calling 
for a pair of woolen blankets to lie under. 

Sacramento City is situated at the junction of 
the American river with the Sacramento. We stop- 
ped there a week and decided to go on to the Middle 
Fork of the American. The American river is made 
up of three branches — north, middle and south. To 
reach the middle fork we had to follow up the main 
river some 40 miles when we struck the mouth of 
the south fork on which was located the sawmill 
built by Mr. Sutter, where the first gold was dis- 
covered in the tail raceway. * Here we exchanged 
our ox-team mode of travel for a train of mules. f 

* Sutter's Mill was torn down in 1856. 

f Wagons and teams used for transportation often involved 
large outlays A wagon cost from #800 to #1,500 — a capacious 
affair with boxes six feet deep and seventeen feet long. For a 
double harness from #300 to $600 were paid. Mules were in 
common use and a pair was valued at from #500 to #1,000, On 
mountain roads six pairs were needed for each wagon. A com- 
plete outfit, therefore, represented a cost of between #4,000 
and $8,000. 

255 



VI. 

IN THE GOLD DIGGINGS. 
1849. 

From Sutter's mill our route now lay over the 
steep rocky divide between the South and Middle 
Forks of the American river with nothing but a 
mule path to follow. The mountains before us 
called the Coast Range were from 2,000 to 3,000 
feet high, very steep and rocky, covered with sev- 
eral varieties of oak and red cedar; wolves and 
bear were numerous, and also deer. We encount- 
ered no bear, but saw many fresh tracks soon after 
leaving camp in the morning. 

There were numerous flocks of fowl larger than 
our partridge, the plumage a bluish color and a 
cockade of feathers curving from the top of the 
head toward the bird's bill. From the crest of the 
mountain at the foot of which the Middle Fork, our 
destination, came in sight, it seemed impossible for 
a human being, much less a loaded mule to make 
the descent, the grade was so nearly perpendicular, 
but a zig zag or rail fence shaped path led down 
and we succeeded in traveling it without any mis- 
hap. A few days after, happening to look up the 
mouutain, I saw a loaded train of mules coming 
256 



AN AFTERNOON'S YIELD OF GOLD. 

down; one mule made a misstep, lost his balance 
and rolled head over heels to the bottom ; he must 
have rolled 80 rods at least. I supposed he was 
killed of course, but the next morning he was feed- 
ing around apparently no worse for the trip. 

We arrived at the foot of the mountain about 10 
o'clock a. m., and set about putting up our tent 
and getting dinner. One of the company anxious 
to see gold stole quietly away with a pan and 
spoon. He returned within an hour with a half 
ounce of it. This aroused all ; it was the first gold 
dust we had seen and that dinner was disposed of 
in short notice. All went down to the water 
edge, where our companion had found it. It was 
evidently an old hole worked the year before. As 
the result of our afternoon's work we took to 
camp 12 ounces of gold and a happier company of 
men could hardly be imagined. 

We were two weeks in exhausting the hole. Let 
me explain what I mean by "hole." We had lo- 
cated on a large bar known then and afterwards 
as the Big Bar of the Middle Fork. * There were 

* Of the exact location, Dr. Halsey, in a letter to his wife 
written from " Big Bar on the Middle Fork of the American 
River" on August 5th, 1849, says: "We were about fifteen 
miles ( in a straight line; thirty by the road) north of Sutter's 
Mill where gold was first found " Bancroft refeis to the rich- 
ness of diggings in that locality and mentions the Big Bar as 
one place of note. He says the Middle Fork was esteemed 
the richest river for a regular yield in California with more 
bars of gold than any other, several of which were said to have 
produced from #1,000,000 to #3,000,000 each. In the sum- 

17 257 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

about 30 acres in it lying in a bend of the stream. 
It had been built up by the water during freshets. 
Gravel, cobble stones, and boulders comprised the 
material. The boulders which were in greatest 
proportion were from the size of an ordinary 
pumpkin, to that of a 40 gallon cask, of a green 
color, oblong in shape, worn to as smooth surface 
as a globe and nearly as heavy as the same quan- 
tity of lead would be. Consequently the moving 
of them was ver}- laborious with no angles to 
clasp, no crowbars at hand and having from 8 to 
10 feet in depth to move before we reached "paying 
dirt," the thermometer standing at 118 in the 
shade from 10 to 3 o'clock. All these things com- 
bined will give some idea of the fun of gold dig- 
ging. There being no statute laws the miners 
organized a code based upon Judge Lynch. 
Among these laws were those affecting titles to 
"claims." A plot 10 feet wide running back 50 
feet toward the mountain constituted a "claim." 
A tool, worn out shovel, or other thing, placed there 

mer of 1848, "one Hudson obtained some $20,000 in six 
weeks from a canyon between Coloma and the American Mid- 
dle Fork, while a boy named Davenport found in the same 
place seventy-seven ounces of pure gold one day and ninety 
ounces the next." John Sinclair, at the junction of the North 
and Middle branches, " displayed fourteen pounds of gold as 
the result of one week's work with fifty Indians, using closely 
woven willow baskets." He secured $16,000 in five weeks. 
One bar alone on the Middle Fork yielded over $1,000,000, and 
yet in spite of these figures " the unfortunate far outnumbered 
the successful." 

258 



LUCK FROM AN ABANDONED HOLE. 

constituted a title ; no one thought of disturbing a 
claim as long as the tool lay there. A claim being 
worked was the "hole." 

We finally pitched our tent upon a beautiful little 
plateau formed originally by a land slide. A spring 
of very cold water was near by. While we were 
at work in our first hole, a company from Ver- 
mont came to the bar and struck in a claim, sank 
a well hole down to the bed rock and left it. We 
had to pass by it on our way from our hole and I 
finally threw an old shovel in. It lay there several 
weeks undisturbed and when we had exhausted 
our job, three of our company including myself as 
the fourth decided to strike into this abandoned 
hole— here I should say that our company of eight 
—the others not yet arrived— had divided into 
three squads. It took us all the forenoon to clear 
out the hole of the boulders and debris which had 
been thrown in from the adjoining claims. After 
dinner we began washing pay dirt. I shoveled, 
another carried to the water, while a third was 
working the " rocker." I laid bare a piece of gold 
while shoveling the second pailful, about one and 
one-half inches long and one-half to three-fourths 
of an inch wide and one-eighth of an inch thick, 
holding it up and hallooing to the boys if they 
knew what that was. We did not fool away much 
time that afternoon and carried home at night 12 
ounces of dust worth then $16 per ounce or $192 
for the half day's work— pretty fair wages. But 
259 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

after taking out the offsets the profits were mate- 
rially reduced. In the first place it took us one- 
half of our time to get down to "pay dirt," then 
it cost us $3 per day to live— nothing was less than 
one dollar per pound— and the squad I was with 
made nearly all the money. * 

That hole lasted our squad through the season. 
We would take down a bench of the overlying dirt 
two feet wide, ten feet in length and eight feet deep, 
down to within a foot of the bed rock where we 
would strike "pay dirt" and it was rich. We 
would carry home at night from 20 to 36 ounces 
of the shining metal. I remember distinctly that 
for the last two days, we carried home one day 36 
ounces and the other 24. There was but one more 
bench to take down and we swapped it for a horse 
to pack our combined accumulations down to Sac- 
ramento, it being about time for the winter storms, 
with snow and rain, to set in. A big snow storm 
was liable to come on and shut us in the moun- 
tains for the winter, which, without a good stock 
of provisions was not a pleasant outlook ; besides 
our partnership expired in October and we must 
go to Sacramento to settle up and divide. Run- 
ning through the hole was a smaller hole about the 
size of an inch augur, literally cramed full of clean 
pure gold which required no washing, in flakes 
looking almost precisely like ripe cucumber seeds. 

*" Last Saturday," wrote Dr. Halsey to his wife from the 
Big Bar on September i8th, " we divided what we had dug and 

260 



A VILLAGE GROWS UP AROUND THEM. 

We would get from ten to twelve ounces, out of 
that vein every bench we took down. 

Our success was soon heralded down to Sacra- 
mento and San Francisco and miners nocked in 
until we had a village there of several hundred. 
The foot of the bar was made up almost entirely of 
the large boulders above described. The bed rock 
as it showed at the edge of the stream was evi- 
dentty cup shaped declining back from the water. 
I proposed that one squad strike in there, but the 
work requisite was too formidable the others 
thought. I offered to be one of three to give the 
company one ounce a day for my time and take 
my chances, but no one would join me. A com- 
pany of sturdy Pennsylvania Dutchmen started in 
there and took out gold in enormous quanti- 
ties. They worked there four weeks and pulled out 
for home sajang they had all the gold they wanted. 
You can rest assured I did some scolding as well as 
laughing at our men. The bed rock shelved back 
from the stream rapidly making a large receptacle 
for the heav}^ metal to drop in. 

I worked as hard as anyone, although not obliged 
to do so according to our contract. I hung my 
"shingle" outside our tent, had a naval medicine 
chest of drugs and instruments, and did quite a 



my share was a fraction over fifty-one ounces, which ?t $20 per 
the ounce amounts to $1,020. This gives me just $11.50 for 
every day I have been in the mines, clear of all expenses, and 
I know we have worked as hard as any other company." 

261 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEYS REMINISCENCES. 

professional business. One ease I shall never for- 
get. A tall, straight, noble looking German came 
into the tent one day. By motions— he could not 
speak English — I understood his ears were at fault ; 
on looking in I could seen an obstruction. Making 
a dish of soap suds and with a glass syringe I 
took out of each ear a wad of figured calico cloth 
nearly as large as the end of my thumb. Warmer 
expressions of delight than those he exhibited I 
never witnessed. He drew out a bag of gold dust, 
threw it upon my medicine chest as much as to say 
"Take what you please, if it is all." I weighed out 
two ounces which was as much as my conscience 
would allow ; thirty-two dollars for syringing out 
a man's ears seemed enough, but he was not satis- 
fied and asked the entire company to go to a liq- 
uor tent close by and take drinks all around which 
cost him $1 per head or $8 in all. I suppose he had 
been in the military service in Germany and stuffed 
his ears in order to get his discharge. 

We took turns of a week each as cook. The style 
of living was quite primeval. The kitchen appa- 
ratus consisted of a camp kettle, coffee pot and 
frying pan ; the kettle answered for a boiler, baker 
and stewer. We freighted in a tierce of pork, 
dumped it on the ground under an oak tree, covered 
it with old coffee sacks where it lay until used up, 
the last portion as sweet as the first. Fresh meat 
hung up in the shade would not spoil but dry up 
as hard as our dried beef here. Pork, fresh beef or 
262 



AN INDIAN PUDDING FROM KORTRIGHT. 

mutton, flour, corn meal, dried apples and onions 
were our articles of diet and all a dollar per pound. 

We had as light and palatable bread as I ever 
saw, baked every day. We saved a bit of the dough 
for lightening the next day's batch, adding the 
surplus grease from our fried pork. I committed 
an error while acting as cook that caused great 
fun for the boys for a long time after. I thought 
to surprise them at dinner by getting up an old 
fashioned boilded Indian pudding such as my 
mother used to make occasionally at our home in 
Kortright. I stirred up a measure of corn meal in 
cold water — that was the error — put in dried ap- 
ples as fruit, tied it up in a white sheet and got it 
over the fire in the camp kettle about 11 o'clock 
while preparing the balance of the dinner and then 
called the boys. After disposing of what there 
was on the table they started to leave. I told 
them to wait as I had a desert ; then went out to 
the fire, brought in my pudding bag anticipating 
the expressions of delight they would make when 
the delicious dish was revealed. It did look invit- 
ing when I rolled it out on the tin plate, but to my 
astonishment when I cut down the centre and the 
two halves rolled apart the inside was as dry as 
though it had never been wet up. 

There was another bar across the stream just 

below us on which one of our squads proposed to 

start a hole. How to get across was the first 

question. A large pitch pine tree stood on the 

263 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

bank on our side, about three feet in diameter. 
Norton, who was a stout, two fisted Yankee, well 
accustomed to the axe, said he would cut it to fall 
across for a foot bridge. He took his axe after 
dinner and in about an hour he came back to 
the tent saying he had had enough of that job. 
I asked, "How so ? " He replied that he had done 
his best and only succeeded in getting out the first 
chip, the tree being so full of pitch that it cut like 
lead. 

About that time or soon after a company of 40 
miners organized to cut a canal across the base of 
the opposite bar for the purpose of turning the 
whole channel of the stream and thus laying bare 
and dr}' about 100 rods of the original bed. One 
of the company, a last year's miner from Ore- 
gon, gave it as his opinion that in a deep hole just 
at the head of the bar, cut out of the bed rock b} r 
the water dropping over a fall of several feet, was a 
large amount of gold. What gave assurance of 
the truth of the opinion was that at the head of 
the falls where the water was shallow but swift, 
scales of gold could be seen in large quantities in 
the seams and crevises of the bed rock, but the cur- 
rent was so swift that it was impossible to secure 
them when dug out with a knife. 

The proposed canal was about forty rods long. 
They needed a foot bridge and hired a man to chop 
down the pine Norton had assailed for eight dol- 
lars; he worked all day and gave up the job, but 
264 



TURNING THE RIVER IN VAIN. 

was induced to continue by liberal offers of pay ; 
he worked steadily for a week and with the com- 
bined assistance of the company, on the Sunday 
following succeeded in felling it. As incredible as 
this may seem it is literally true ; the character of 
the timber and the man having nothing but a sin- 
gle axe for the work make the unreasonableness of 
the story materially modified even to a skeptic. 
But what detracts from the romance of the under- 
taking is the fact that the result was almost a 
complete failure ; they spent the entire season and 
turned the entire stream very completely ; pumped 
out the deep hole and secured two or three bushel 
of fish; not an ounce of gold in it. But just at 
the foot of the hole they found a large mass of gold, 
the balance of the bed not showing any pay dirt. 
They were a sorry looking company and had the 
sympatlvy of the entire settlement. The water 
coming from the snow capped mountains, in sight 
and estimated to be 30 miles away, was very cold, 
almost ice water, too cold for bathing and well 
stocked with fish similar to our trout but without 
speckles. 

Sunday was recognized as a day of rest from 
digging but used as washing day. From 10 
a. m. to 3 p. m. was a period of rest in consequence 
of the extreme heat; the reflection of heat from 
the high barren rocky mountains was simply ter- 
rific; the thermometer ranged daily at 118. A 
piece of iron left in the sun could not be held in the 
265 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

hand ; about 10 the north-west trade wind would 
start up so that under cover or shade one would 
be very comfortable while quiet; the nights were 
deliciously cool requiring a pair of woolen blankets 
for comfort.* 

We packed our valuables onto the old gray horse 
and bidding goodbye to the diggings started for 
the top of the mountain, which we reached just 
after dark. We arrived at the Sutter sawmill, now 
called Coloma, the second day after when we con- 
cluded to stop and "divide" up as some of the 
number wanted to go back into the dry diggings. 
We reached Sacramento about 9 p. m. When we 
left there in June the town had no buildings or 
streets and only a few tents. Now we found in 
October solid blocks of buildings of two and three 
stories, more like Broadway, New York, than 
when we saw it last with streets open and built 
up in all directions, and a population of 10,000. 
Could it be possible? Yes! it must be true; like 
Rip Van Winkle we had been spending our lives as 
it were in a sleep, and had just been aroused to 
find the world so completely changed as to make 
us strangers in it. Such were my feelings that 

* In a letter written during his last illness, in reply to inqui- 
ries from me, Dr. Halsey said: "There was a place below 
us, and as I supposed near the confluence of the stream with 
the other branch called Spanish Bar. I am inclined to think 
the place now known as Murderer's Bar is the same. Where 
we were, on the Big Bar of the Middle Fork, was supposed to 
be about ten miles above the junction with the North Fork." 

266 



A CITY BUILT IN A NIGHT. 

night, and it was days before I could locate old 
land marks, so as to realize I had ever been in the 
place before. 

It was my intention to open an office and prac- 
tice my profession at Sacramento, but on looking 
over the ground I was simply amazed to see the 
number of doctors' shingles hanging out. I act- 
ually think one would have been safe to call every 
other man he met doctor; he would get an affirm- 
ative answer and in truth I was ashamed to let 
myself be known as a physician. As a consequence 
I decided to go to San Francisco and look about. 

I have overlooked a matter in its proper order. 
As previously stated our company organized with 
a capital of $4,000 ; when we reached the diggings 
our funds except the outfit, tools, camp equipage, 
etc., were exhausted and we owed $1200, of which 
$100 is still unpaid. We gave a note for that 
amount in Sacramento, but on our return to the 
city we were unable to find the owner after making 
a diligent search. I took passage for San Fran- 
cisco on the first down trip of the first steamboat* 
that was put on the Sacramento river. It was a 
flat bottom scow with two small engines, one to 
each wheel with no deck cabins or other conven- 
iences. At the Bay we were put aboard a sloop for 
the balance of the trip, the steamer not being safe. 

* Of the first steamer on this liver, Bancroft says : " On the 
15th of August, 1849, a scow was launched and two days later 
the George Washington, the first river steamboat of California 

267 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

Arriving at San Francisco I was again aston- 
ished at the marvelous change since leaving it four 
months before. A veritable city of 15,000 inhabi- 
tants had sprung up with towering blocks of 
buildings, many of which would vie with those of 
that time in Broadway, New York; where there 
was water were now docks covered with buildings 
and still being pushed out farther into the bay ; a 
teeming busy throng filled the streets bordering on 
the water. I found the same state of affairs as to 
the number of doctors' signs. I was negotiating to 
take an interest in a drug store as a practitioner 
when it was announced through the papers that 
the stock of provisions was rapidly diminishing 
and none were known to be on the way. Flour 
jumped from $50 to $120 per barrel at once and 
every thing else in the eatable line went up in the 
same proportion. 

The condition was any thing but a pleasant one, 
I looked the matter over very carefully and finally 
decided that I could go home and return the next 
spring for less money than it would cost me to 
stay there. One of our company, Captain Norton, 
was intending to take the next steamer for Panama 
and home and I decided to accompany him. While 
preparing for the journey we came across the 
Vermont part\- whom I have mentioned as aban- 

arrived from Benecia. In September the Sacramento was 
launched a mile above the town, and shortly after arrived an- 
other of the same name, of scow build, which sold for £40,000." 

268 



A DECISION TO GO HOME. 

doning the hole which I afterwards held with an 
old shovel ; they were also returning on the same 
vessel. 



269 



VII. 

THE RETURN TRIP TO PANAMA. 
1849. 

The difference in cost of passage between cabin 
and steerage from San Francisco to Panama was 
$100. We clubbed together, and bought some 
private stores and took steerage tickets. The 
vessel made but one call on the trip — at Acapulco 
about half way, where we remained one day and 
all went ashore. Acapulco is b}' nature a paradise, 
a beautiful little harbor, perfectly land locked, the 
land rising quite rapidly from the white sandy 
beach, for 4-0 or 50 rods, then descending on the 
opposite side through a magnificent grove of 
orange and other trees down to a beautiful stream 
of clear sparkling water about twice the size of the 
Ouleout. Here we all enjoyed the luxury of a 
swim in the clear water. I cannot remember when 
I enjoyed a day's outing as upon that occasion. 

During my rambles through the city of Acapulco 
I came across a pathological curiosity. I have 
ever regretted loosing its measurements which I 
took at the time. It was a hydrocephalus child 
which, judging from its physical developments, was 
two or three years of age; the face had an infant's 
270 



TAKEN ILL WITH CHAGRES FEVER. 

appearance while the cranium or skull was dis- 
tended to the size I am confident of half a barrel. 
I took its measure anterior— posteriorly and 
laterally over the crown, put the paper in my 
pocket where it disappeared with my clothes 
mysteriously as I will explain farther on. 

We raised anchor and sailed from Acapulco about 
dark the following evening, and being in a hot 
climate everybody lay on their blankets out on 
deck whenever they could. I lay down on the 
boiler deck about in the centre of the boat, the 
deck being occupied b} r sleeping men all around me. 
Some time in the night I awoke with a feeling of 
extreme fright, having the impression that the 
passengers charged me with having committed a 
crime so henious that they were about to mob me. 
Knowing I was innocent of any offence, I lay 
some minutes endeavoring to convince myself that 
it was a delusion of my own mind, but the more I 
cogitated over it the more my fears were aroused, 
until as a final resort to save myself, I sprang up 
and jumped down to the main deck, some ten or 
twelve feet, and hid in the water closet forward of 
the wheelhouse. 

From that time for nine da\"s all is a blank to 
my mind, although I shall ever retain the impres- 
sion, which proved incorrect, that I left the closet 
and on reaching the deck met Henry Wright who 
was among the passengers and is now living in 
Walton, a man whom all our older people will 
271 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

remember as having formerly lived here * univer- 
sally respected and recognized as a man of unim- 
peachable integrity. My reasons for thus speaking 
in complimentary terms will soon be apparent. 

My impression was that I had told Mr. Wright 
my gold dust bags were in the water closet, and 
requested him to take care of them . Fortunately 
for friend Wright and myself the traditional 
honesty of the sailor was our salvation from an 
unpleasant situation. My old friend Norton 
informed me after I had passed the crisis and 
recovered consciousness, that the morning after my 
attack, he found me alone in the cabin with a pair 
of blankets over my shoulders and no other cloth- 
ing, not even a shirt, on. He asked me what was 
the matter and I replied "Nothing. " " But where 
is 3 r our clothing?" I replied, "I came aboard 
without any. " " Where is your money, he asked?" 
and my reply was "Mr. Wright has it." 

After getting me in bed and calling the ship sur- 
geon, he looked up Mr. Wright, saying, "I suppose 
you will take good care of his money." "I have 
no knowledge of his money," Mr. Wright ans- 
wered, "I have not seen it." Norton said : "Hal- 
sey just told me he informed you where it was and 
asked you to take care of it." " It is a mistake. I 
have not seen Halsey and know nothing whatever 
of his money." 

* A son of Roswell Wright, the early merchant of Main and 
Mill Stieets, Unadilla. 

272 



ACROSS THE ISTHMUS IN A HAMMOCK. 

During the day the mate of the vessel gave out 
notice that one of the sailors while in the perform- 
ance of his duties had found some bags of gold, 
which the owner could have by proving owner- 
ship. Norton, familiar with these bags, was able 
to obtain them, thus freeing Mr. Wright from the 
charge I should have entertained — that he had my 
money— had the sailor been a dishonest man and 
kept the gold. 

The morning of the tenth day from the day of 
my attack of sickness the steamer cast anchor in 
Panama bay. The rattle of the chain as the an- 
chor was run out aroused me to consciousness. I 
can never forget the feelings with which I looked 
around, bewildered and amazed, unable to account 
for my condition and surroundings, unable to lift 
a finger even. I could only appeal to the good 
angel— Norton— who was standing over me, for an 
explanation. I was carefully swung into a ham- 
mock over the side of the vessel and thence into a 
small boat and got ashore. Then they placed me 
upon the sand outside the wall of the city where I 
lay for an hour or more, until Norton could go into 
the town and secure a room at the American 
Hotel. I was there two weeks, hovering between 
life and death until I secured a physician from 
New Orleans, who with his family, was on his way 
to the new Eldorado and was stopping at Panama 
to recuperate his purse, which had been depleted. 

He prescribed 30 grains of quinine to be taken in 
is 273 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

10 grain doses at intervals of two hours, thus 
taking 30 grains in three hours, an amount which 
no physician at the North would dare to prescribe. 
It unquestionably saved my life. I was wholly un- 
conscious for the next 24 hours. When the effect 
wore off my fever was banished but I was as help- 
less as an infant. His after treatment did not suit 
me and at the tenth visit I dismissed him, paying 
for his services $100 with thanks for his good in- 
tentions. After a few days I became satisfied that 
I could not get any strength in Panama, but must 
get across the Isthmus into a cooler climate. I 
made a bargain with four natives to put me into a 
hammock, sling it on a bamboo pole and take me 
across to Cruces* on the Chagres River for twenty 
dollars. 

We started in the morning, but when a mile or 
two on our way and in a dense forest, the natives 
laid me down and refused to go further without 
more pay. Here again I was cared for and pro- 
tected by my dear friend Norton, except for whose 
presence and prompt action I should doubtless 
have been left to the wild beasts, or death from ex- 
posure, if not actually murdered. Norton is a 
large, muscular man, with the courage of a lion, 
though as gentle and kind in disposition as a 

* Cruces is one of the oldest settlements on the American 
continent. In the days of Spanish rule large quantities of 
silver in ingots were often stored there. The place was cap- 
tured by Admiral Drake in the fifteenth century. Morgan, the 
buccaneer, captured it in the seventeenth. 

274 



SAVED BY CAPTAIN NORTON. 

lamb when not aroused. He was the owner of a 
double barrelled shot gun, which he had taken to 
California and thought so much of that he brought 
it back. His hair was very long with full uncut 
beard, which hung down in front to his waist, al- 
together giving him a leonine appearance not to be 
trifled with. When they laid me down he drew the 
cover off his gun, cocked it, deliberately stepped in 
front of the rascals, with the most savage look im- 
aginable— I can see it now— and with his gun at his 
shoulder ready to fire, ordered them to pick me up. 
The cowered fellows sullenly complied and we had 
no further trouble. 

We arrived at Cruces after dark on the second 
day. I was refused admission to a hotel kept by a 
Yankee on account of my condition, the proprietor 
fearing I had a contagious disease, but was allowed 
to pass the night in an out building on a pile of 
dry hides. I never passed a better night of sweet 
sleep, and in the morning walked unaided into the 
hotel and relished a breakfast of sugar cured ham, 
soft boiled eggs and coffee, bought a bottle of 
sherry wine, chartered a dug out and started for 
Chagres, where I was put aboard a steamer bound 
for New York. 



275 



VIII. 

JAMAICA AND THE RETURN 
TO TJNADILLA. 

1849--1850. 

As soon as we got under way, and struck the 
north-west trade wind, the effect upon me was like 
magic. A glass of lemonade could have been no 
equivalent in relieving thirst to that cool, delicious 
wind. I sat on deck and took it in with more relish 
than I ever drank any iced beverage on a sultn r 
day in August. Every breath I took added new 
life and stimulation to every nerve and muscle like 
electricity. My appetite became almost uncon- 
trolable. About an hour before the opening of the 
dining room I would seat myself at the door, the 
first one to enter and last to leave the table. It 
was on that vessel I found my relish for the to- 
mato ; it had always been a disagreeable article to 
me, but one day the stewardess brought out a pan 
of them and put them in one of the small boats 
which hung at the davits. They looked so inviting 
that I reached over and took one. I bit into it and 
a more luscious fruit never passed m> r lips. 

The voyage was a ver} r pleasant and uneventful 
one. We stopped at Kingston on the Island of Ja- 
276 



AMONG DANGEROUS CHARACTERS. 

niaica for one day. I went on shore and while sit- 
ting in a hotel a native seeing me very shabbily 
dressed — and by the way my clothing aboard the 
vessel coming down the Pacific was never found ; I 
suppose I must have thrown it overboard after 
taking out my gold dust * and placed it where the 
sailor found it, other passengers had contribu- 
ting to cover my nakedness — approached and asked 
me if I did not wish to buy some clothing. That 
being my object in going ashore I replied in the af- 
firmative. He offered to take me to a shop and 
without thinking I started, not even saying a word 
to Norton who was sitting near b} r . The man led me 
into several streets and finally through a narrow al- 
ley into another street where the shop was situated. 
When he entered that alley the thought struck 
me, suddenly, that he had evil intentions. Owing 
to the fact that Kingston was renowned for the 
disorders committed by its villainous population, f 
I felt that I was in a dangerous predicament. But 
it would not do to show fear. My only resort was 
to put on a bold, unconcerned appearance, keep- 
ing my eyes open. The alley being narrow I drop- 

* One of the bags in which he brought home his gold is still 
preserved at his home in Unadilla. From some of the gold he 
had two finger rings made. Both are now in Unadilla and one 
of them since 1850 has been worn by his wife. 

t Great discontent had long prevailed there and the place 
was still in a disturbed condition. The liberated slaves be- 
tween 1833 and 1841, then in a state bordering on revolt, had 
caused the suspension of cultivation on no fewer than 653 su- 
gar plantations, besides 456 others where coffee was grown. 

277 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

ped behind him and kept behind the rest of the 
way. I selected my suit and fortunately had loose 
change enough to pay the bill, but no other money 
in sight. 

I think this delayed him in his plan. Soon after 
we started back he asked me if I was intending to 
remain ashore that night. I promptly answered 
that I expected to do so. He then said he would 
be around at bed time and see that I had a good 
room. He urged me not to go to bed until he 
came, which I promised, but before dark I went 
aboard the vessel, believing I had escaped harm 
once more. 

We reached New York on Christmas morning. It 
was the coldest day I ever experienced. I have no 
recollection of the temperature of the thermome- 
ter, but having come direct from the torrid climate 
into the frigid the contrast was fearful. I stopped 
at the United States Hotel, still standing in Fulton 
Street. Here came my first experience in sleeping in 
a feather bed since leaving home in February pre- 
vious. Sleep I could not, but rolled from one side 
to the other in misery— such is the power of habit 
—and finally got out on the floor with a single 

The owners of these plantations had abandoned them. A 
more or less unsettled condition continued to prevail until 1865, 
when the natives rose in rebellion and shocking atrocities oc- 
curred. The famous Governor Eyre finally suppressed the up- 
rising, but through measures so vigorous and severe that he was 
recalled to England. Jamacia is almost entirely peopled by 
blacks. They comprise about 87 per cent of the whole. 

278 



"AS ONE FROM THE DEAD." 

covering and there slept like a log the balance of 
the night. 

Reaching my home in Connecticut the next day, I 
was received as one from the dead. Friends had 
had no word from me since my first arrival at 
Panama. From California not one letter had yet 
reached them. 

Thus ends a brief recital of my adventurous 
gold seeking trip to California. Here I must refer 
again to the great obligations I shall ever rest un- 
der to my old friend Capt. Norton. May his days 
be as long and happy as, were it in my power, I 
would make them, with the full consciousness that 
when he goes to his last home, the verdict will be : 
There was a faithful friend and an honest man. 
The world in more ways than I have personally 
known, has been the better for his having been 
an actor in life's great drama. God bless him. 

Physically a wreck and in no condition for busi- 
ness, I made a visit soon after my return to this 
beautiful village for recuperation and pleasure 
among old friends. Meeting with a most cordial 
greeting and many requests to again become a 
resident, and having nothing in Connecticut to 
hold me — I had sold my property there before go- 
ing to California — ; moreover, as is universally 
the case with those who have spent the whole or a 
part of life in Unadilla* I still held a high appre- 

* " One of the meanings assigned to Unadilla by local tradi- 
tion is " Pleasant Valley." It has also been said to stand for 

279 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

ciation of it and so was pleased again to become 
a resident, being in this appreciation no exception 
to the familiar rule. 

some kind of a river. The meaning given by Morgan, our best 
authority, is " Place of Meeting ", which refers to the junction 
of the two streams. The word has been spelled in many 
ways. As in the Fort Stanwix deed we find Tianaderha, so 
Gideon Hawley in 1753 wrote Teyonadelhough. Richard 
Smith cites the form Tunaderrah. Other forms are Cheonadilha 
and Deunadilla, while Unendilla and Unideally are common. 
Joseph Brant in a letter to Persefer Carr wrote Tunadilla. 

" All these forms resulted from the white man's efforts to put 
into writing the word as he heard it pronounced by various In- 
dian tribes. The form Unadilla comes nearest to the Oneida 
dialect, which has the charm of greater softness than the oth- 
ers. Stone is at a loss to understand why the pioneers were 
not content to accept as final the spelling adopted by an edu- 
cated Indian like Brant. The present spelling was adopted 
however when the town was formed. In the Poor Master's 
book of 1793 the word is written as we write it now. 

" How long the name had been in use before Hawley used 
it, is of course, matter of conjecture, but it was the name of a 
place before it ever was applied to a stream. In 1683 the In- 
dians called the river ' The Kill which falls into the Susque- 
hanna.' The stream had obviously at that time received no 
name. Originally the name was applied not only as now to the 
Unadilla side of the two rivers, but to lands across them in- 
cluded in the towns of Sidney and Bainbridge. It was a term 
for all the territory adjacent to the confluence and now inter- 
sected by the boundaries of three counties. 

"The Unadilla river and part of the present town of Una- 
dilla with perhaps all of it, were Oneida territory. Further 
east were Mohawk lands The Oneidas are know to have sold 
lands as far east as Herkimer and Delhi. Evidence, however, 
which Morgan regards as safe, begins the line of division at a 
point five miles east of Utica and extends it directly south to 
Pennsylvania making Unadilla border lands between the two 
nations. Lands in several parts of Otsego country were sold 
by the Mohawks but none lay as far west as Unadilla." — From 
"The Old New York Frontier"; pages 26 and 27. 

280 




p a 

< T. 



W c 
H - 



VALUES IN UNADILLA REAL ESTATE. 

Before returning to Connecticut I bought the old 
Martin Brook corner property* of Col. A. D. 
Williams. This was in the spring of 1850. The 
property then embraced what is now the Joyce 
furniture store and White store lots. As an evi- 
dence of the growth of the village and the advance 
in the value of real estate, let me say I paid Col. 
Williams $800 for the propert} r , built the office, the 
same year, and the barn the next. The railroad 
project was started a few years later and real 
estate began to boom. I sold the White store lot 
for $600 and the balance for $3500. The furniture 
store lot was afterwards sold off and last summer 
{ 1889 ) I re-purchased the balance for more than 
three times what I had paid Col. Williams for the 
whole original tract. It is now the most eligible 
site for a business block, and will undoubtedly be 
so occupied in the future. 

When I had again become a resident in 1850, I 
had and have always since had no disposition to 
change until the final change — the common lot of 
all, which I am ready to accept at any time. 

During the war of the rebellion and just after the 
battle of Antietamf I was impelled by sympathy 

* He also formed a partnership with Dr. Joseph Sweet and 
made arrangements to erect for use as their office the building 
that for about twenty-five years was occupied as the post office. 
Postmasters who served out full terms in this building are : Mr. 
Packard, Henry VanDusen, Frank G. Bolles, Alanson H. 
Meeker and Milo B. Gregory. 

fThe battle of Antietam was fought on September 16 and 
17th, 1862, bv the Union army under McClellan and the 
281 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

for the poor sufferers from that terrible fight to go 
down to Washington in company with Dr. Joshua 
J. Sweet and tender my services, gratis. Judge 
Turner, of Cooperstown, was then acting as 
Assistant Secretary of war. He procured an order 
and forwarded us to Frederick, Maryland, for duty 
in the barracks hospital at that place. I spent 
two weeks in charge of a ward where were twenty 
or more poor fellows suffering every imaginable 
form of wounds. I saw in that time all the horrors 
of war that I cared to see. * 

Confederates under Lee. More than 100,000 men were 
engaged. As a result of the battle Lee withdrew from Mary- 
land soil to Virginia and Lincoln, in accordance with his 
promise in the event of such a result, five days later issued the 
proclamation abolishing slavery A short distance from the 
scene of the battle lies the city of Frederick, to which many of 
McClellan's 9,416 wounded men were conveyed. 

* In many of the battles of the war Unadilla had represen- 
tatives — notably in those fought in the eastern part of the field 
of conflict. Records already printed show that about 200 men 
enlisted in Unadilla. Below are some of the battles in which 
they fought with the names of many of the men : 

At South Mountain, Sept. 1862: Henry B. Crooker, William 
J. Place, William T. Smyth, Marshall A. Grannis and 
Laurence A. Bartholomew. 

At Antietam, Sept. 1862: Charles York, William J. Place, 
Laurence A. Bartholomew, Henry B. Crooker, Marshall A. 
Grannis, William T. Smyth, Alonzo Olds, Milo Olds and 
George Hawks. 

At Fredericksburg, Dec. 1862: Henry B Crooker, George 
B. Jordan, William T. Smyth, Marshall A. Grannis, Milo Olds, 
Alonzo Olds, Morris Shaw, Laurence A. Bartholomew, Lewis 
S. Nichols, Charles York, and William J. Place. 

At Petersburgh, May 1864: William J. Place, Henry B. 
282 



INADILLA MEN IN THE CIVIL WAR. 

[ Dr. Halsey was asked to write a chapter giving 
his experience in the hospitals at Frederick. He 
could not. be induced to do so. The entire war 
topic was repugnant to him. "I always feel," he 
said in 1890, "like using an oath whenever the 
subject is brought up." He never could believe 
that real necessity for the war was compatible with 
public intelligence. He felt fortified in this view by 

Crooker, Alonzo Olds, James T. Wilkins, M. R. Vandervoort, 
George H. Johnson, Wesley A. Vandervoort, James Webb, 
and Leonard L. Butler ( killed ). 

In Burnside's Expedition, Jan. 1862: Marshall A. Grannis 
and George B. Jordan. 

At Chancellorsville, May 1863: Frederick Albright, Alonzo 
Olds, Milo Olds, Alvin Clyde, ( he met his death there ) John 
M. Smythe ( also killed there ) Morris Shaw, William H. Crane, 
Charles York, and Laurence A. Bartholomew. 

At Spottsylvania, May 1864: Richard Slade, Edmund 
Nichols, Alonzo Olds, Morris Shaw, David Nichols, Charles 
York and Laurence A Bartholomew. 

In the Seven Days Fight, July 1862: James Richardson and 
Thomas T. Webb. 

At Malvern Hill, July 1862: Edward Carmichael who was 
made prisoner and spent four weeks in Belle Isle Prison. 

At Yorktown, May 1862: Robert S. Balestier and Thomas 
T. Webb 

In the Wilderness, May 1864: Morris Shaw, Alonzo Olds, 
Erastus S. Hawks, Alfred C. Bartholomew, (killed) Bradford J. 
D. Fox (killed) Charles York and Laurence A Bartholomew. 

At Winchester, Sept 1864: Alonzo Olds, Peter Rogers, 
Philip M. Spencer, Charles York and Laurence A. Bartholo- 
mew. 

At Lee's Surrender, April, 1865; were present Morris Shaw, 
George H. Johnson, Alonzo Olds and Marshall A. Grannis. 

Besides these battles the town was represented at Cold Har- 
283 



OR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

the success with which he had seen slavery peace- 
fully abolished elsewhere in the world. England 
had abolished it in her own colonies long before 
our Civil War and without loss of blood. In Russia 
millions of slaves were freed without war and the 
same result had been achieved without domestic 
conflict in Brazil. One of these countries was ruled 
by an autocrat and two of the three comprise in 
part scarcely more than semi-civilized people and 



bor by George H. Johnson; at Bermuda Hundred by George 
H. Johnson, Marshall A. Grannis, and William J. Place; at 
Rappahannock Station by Charles York and Laurence A. Bar- 
tholomew; at Cedar Creek by George R. Wheeler; at Drury's 
Bluff by Hen-y B.Crooker and Marshall A. Grannis; at Honey 
Hill and Bull's Neck by Peter Weidman and Jacob F. Weid- 
man. 

At Salisbury Prison the town was represented by M. R. Van- 
dervoort and W. A. Vandervoort, and by James Webb who 
died there, and at Libby Prison by James Richardson. 

Henry J. Halstead was a Sargeant under Generals Stone, 
Banks, Burnside and Butler. George L. Fiske was an orderly 
to General Warren. At Fair Oaks George S. Joyce was pro- 
moted to be an orderly and at Gettysburgh he became a first 
Lieutenant. Frank G. Bolles served in the war as a Second 
Lieutenant. 

Another soldier from Unadilla was Charles C. Siver after 
whom the Grand Army Post was named. Mr. Siver became a 
prominent business man in UnadiUa as the partner of Thomas 
G. North. He died all too soon. His father was David Siver 
who long survived him, dying in May, 1890, after having lived 
here since i860. He was held in much esteem. He had come 
from Montgomery County and settled in Sidney about 1845, 
where at one time he was a merchant and at another a farmer. 
Other sons besides Charles came with him to Unadilla and their 
industry contributed notably to the welfare of the village. 

284 



EMANCIPATION WITHOUT CIVIL WAR. 

yet they effected great economic revolutions by 
means entirely peaceful. 

Nor could he forget that slavery in the northern 
States had been abolished without war. He knew 
that this was not due to higher moral sense on the 
part of the northern people, but to causes purely 
economic. Slavery in the North did not pay and 
hence it was abolished. He believed this would ul- 
timately have been the result in the South, a view 
which the tremendous changes wrought in agricul- 
tural labor by machinery since the war has steadily 
tended to confirm in many thoughtful minds. 

When the war afterwards became a war to save 
the Union, and the Emancipation Proclamation 
had eliminated slavery from the issue, he knew 
how entirety the situation and the motives for the 
war had changed ; but never to his last day did he 
fail to regard the war, in its immediate origin, as a 
public iniquity in which extremists at the North 
and South alike had dyed their hands in innocent 
blood. He knew that secession sentiments were 
not exclusively the property of South Carolina and 
Mississippi and that Abolitionists at the North, 
who have since been held in great honor and almost 
made national heroes, openly advocated it, long 
before the Southern leaders fled to it as a desperate 
resort.*] 

* In politics he was a Democrat. Before the war he was su- 
pervisor of the town and was a delegate afterwards to a State 
Convention at Rochester which nominated a governor and 

285 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

In 1865 I became interested with a partner in 
the first drug store * opened in the village, which 
finally came into my hands alone and made neces- 
sary my withdrawing from the active practice of 
my profession. Failing health at last compelled 
me to dispose of the drug store in the spring of 
1888. 

Thus briefly have I reviewed nry personal history 
in the past half century. Notwithstanding its 
length it has occupied much more time than I ex- 
pected when starting it. Yet, had I included all 
points of anj r special interest as they passed my 
mind's eye in panoramic order, perhaps I could 
have occupied a far larger space. The urgent wish 
of my children was the first inducement. The 
pleasure derived from thus reviewing my life in leis- 
ure moments has been the fullest compensation. If 



other officers. He was in sympathy with the public measures 
of Samuel J. Tilden and had some correspondence with him. 
With Salmon G. Cone and Martin B. Luther he afterwards 
supported in this region the Labor and Greenback parties and 
in 1883 was the candidate of those organizations for Comptroller 
on the State ticket. 

* This store had been started a few years earlier by Charles 
N. Hughston. Before that the nearest approach to a drug store 
in the village probably existed in the building which was so 
long occupied by the Post Office. At that time it was Dr. Hal- 
sey's office. On one side of the room was shelving filled with 
a supply of necessary drugs, and with a counter and drawers. 
The partnership of 1865 was with Chauncey Slade and con- 
tinued until January, 1871. Mr. Slade during this period had 
been postmaster. He now removed to Adams, Jefferson County, 
but his health failed rapidly and he died in Binghamton in 1872. 

286 



A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE. 

readers have been in any like proportion gratified, 
this truly has been an additional as well as unex- 
pected pleasure. 

I cannot refrain from attempting as a final ad- 
dendum a look into the probable and possible de- 
velopments of the next fifty years. While I am 
neither a prophet nor a son of a prophet, yet in 
view of what the past fifty years have brought 
out in utilizing and subjecting the primary ele- 
ments to the practical benefit of mankind, I have 
no hesitation in placing myself on record as antici- 
pating as great or greater achievements in the 
same direction. Who would have called a man 
sane fifty years ago that should have sincerely said 
we would ever talk with another living thousands 
of miles away ? or that one's voice could be stirred 
up and again given to another's auditory sense 
years after ? 

In view of this and other equally incredible de- 
velopments, how long before the air will be as 
safely navigable as the earth or water ? It is but 
a question of time when principles of economy will 
secure us against extravagant waste of fuel. The 
earth is fast being gridironed with railroads driven 
by the consumption of coal, but only a small per 
cent of the heat evolved is utilized. The other 
ninety per cent or so is complete waste. Geology 
says coal will eventually be exhausted and wood 
is already practically destroyed as fuel. 

The child is now living who will see heating, 
287 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

lighting, washing, cooking, etc., done at central 
points, and supplies distributed wherever needed. 
He will also see the fact recognized and generally 
adopted that Omniscience in creating and develop- 
ing our wonderful Universe had some loftier, more 
ennobling object in view than to allow the few to 
enslave the masses simply for power and gain. 
God speed the time when the old saying of Robert 
Burns, "man's inhumanity to man makes count- 
less thousands mourn" will cease to be true. 



288 



IX. 

MY CALIFORNIA DIARY. 
Feb. 12, 1849--Nov. 11, 1849. 

[ This diary was brought to light not long after 
the foregoing Reminiscences had appeared in "The 
Unadilla Times." Dr. Halsey was urged to include 
it in the proposed pamphlet, but made no definite 
reply to the suggestion. It obviously did not occur 
to him that it would be interesting to others than 
himself— not even to members of his own family. I 
do not remember having ever seen it before, or 
been informed by him of its existence. Written as 
it was amid the scenes described, the propriety of 
including it here seems clear. Although he used a 
pencil, and more than fifty years have passed, the 
words are still as distinct and legible as when he 
set them down.] 

Feb. 12, '49; left Plainville; stormy; staid at 
New Haven till 16th one o'clock p. m. ; arrived in 
New York 7 p. m. 

Left New York Friday 23, at 9 o'clock and 20 
minutes ; all sea sick before night. Saturday 24th, 
table vacant pretty much. Good appetites are 
few. Wind commenced to blow up from the north- 
east Saturday night and continued with rain till 

» 289 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

Sunday 25th at 2 o'clock p. m., when it changed 
into the south-east and continued a perfect gale 
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday till 9 
a. m., when it went into the north-east, or rather 
when we struck the trade winds blowing from the 
north-east. 

We are now, Thursday p. m. 1st March tripping 
it towards Chagres at the rate of 10 knots an 
hour. 

Friday 2nd. A beautiful day and going at a nice 
rate ; warm and balmy. 

Saturday 3d. A beautiful da}'; we this day 
crossed the tropic and every man has his coat off; 
sun comes down hot. 

Tuesday 4th. Made land this morning 6 o'clock, 
the Caicas Islands on our right and Turks Island 
on our left; a beautiful day, thermometer at 10 
o'clock stood at summer heat; shirt sleeves and 
summer vests are out in profusion ; had divine ser- 
vice on board to-day by a lay, brother ( Mr. Ap- 
pleton ) of New York, an aged man who with two 
sons and two nephews are going to California 
after fortunes. Had occasion to prescribe for two 
cases to-day on board. 

Monday 5th. Another fine day; we made the 
passage to-day between the Islands of Hayti and 
Cuba; we were not near enough to either to see 
how they looked except that there was very high 
land on both. The inauguration of President 
Taylor was observed by cracking a few bottles of 
290 



THE TRIP DOWN TO CHAGRES. 

champagne furnished ns by the generosity of the 
house of Livingston and Wells of New York. It 
is getting very hot for us northerners. 

Wednesday 7th. Another fine day and fine run. 
We shall make Chagres Friday if everything con- 
tinues favorable. 

Thursday 8th. Another fine day and we have 
made a fine run. Nothing of consequence has oc- 
curred to-day except an eclipse of the moon this 
evening. To-morrow we expect to see Chagres, be- 
ing at 4 o'clock to-day but 130 miles off. 

Friday 9th. Made Porto Bello this morning and 
from there to Chagres is thirty miles ; the scenery 
was magnificent. Arrived off Chagres about noon 
where we anchored and lay till Saturday noon; 
had fine sport fishing. 

Saturday 10th. Towed into harbor this morn- 
ing by the "Orus." Left Chagres 2 p. m. in the 
"Orus" which took us 15 miles up the river and 
then we took canoes. The scenery up the river is 
be> ond northern conception in point of beauty. 
The land must be capable of producing unlimitedly. 

Sunday 11th. Arrived at Gorgona and pitched 
our tent. The river is literally crammed with nice 
fish, but cannot be caught with a hook ; am not 
so favorably impressed with the natives here as at 
Chagres; they are fast learning dishonesty from 
the Americans. They all smoke, women and all ; I 
observed one woman smoking with the lit end in 
her mouth. 

291 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

Monday 12th. Nothing of note to mention ex- 
cept that we drew our seine and caught a few noble 
fish ; but there are too many snags to fish safely. 
Gambling is carried on here by some Americans 
and several fools have lost all their money and re- 
turned home. Very hot, thermometer ranging 
about 100. 

Tuesday 13th. Five of our company went on 
to-day with the most of our baggage and the rest 
of us go when we get ready. Freight is from 6 to 
10 dollars per 100 lbs. as you make your bargain. 

Saturday 17th. Left Gorgona for Panama. 
Walked to the half way house and put up,— the 
distance called from 12 to 15 miles. 

Sunday 18th. Started about 4 o'clock and 
reached Panama about 12 ; fell in on the way with 
a company who had a dog, and about two miles 
from the city it was taken rabid, but the owner 
would not consent to have it shot till it had treed 
us all. The city is a very ancient looking place, 
the buildings being constructed of stone, the old 
Spanish style with tiled roofs and surrounded by a 
wall of great strength, but time is crumbling it in 
many places. The inhabitants are a mixture of 
blacks, Indians and Spaniards— an ignorant inof- 
fensive people, all Catholics ; the cathedral was a 
splendid building in its day. All people smoke. 

May 17th. Left Panama in a bunjo for the 
Panama steamer lying in the bay and with no lit- 
tle satisfaction— such in fact as no one but who 
292 



ALMOST ON THE BREAKERS. 

has been imprisoned nine weeks in the same place 
can appreciate. We raised anchor about 12 p. m. 
and started for Francisco. 

Friday 18th. We are on our way, all a jolly 
looking set of fellows. The news received from 
California and our being set free from a tedious im- 
prisonment have put a happy look upon all. Saw 
a whale spouting this morning before getting out 
of the bay and also sharks. 

Monday 21st. Nothing of note since last date. 
Pierce was taken sick to-day. 

Tuesday 22d. P. is quite sick to-day, but hope 
he will not be long. We are getting along fine. 
We were followed to-day by a school of black fish 
and they attracted great notice jumping out of the 
water. They followed us several miles. 

Wednesday 23d. P. is about the same. I fear he 
will be hard sick. 

Thursday 24th. Nothing of note. We are on 
our way finely, having so far beautiful weather. 
P. is no better ; a hard place to be sick in ; no at- 
tention being paid to either sick or well. 

Friday 25th. Many a sick person would give a 
fortune to be insured as delightful weather for a 
sea voyage. P. is about the same, his fever not 
quite as high as it has been. 

Saturday 26th. We last night came very near 

being lost in the breakers. Our "look out" fell 

asleep and the first we knew we were aroused by 

the noise of the breakers, they being not more than 

293 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

one and a half miles off and we going 9 or 10 
knots. The captain says there is a serious mis- 
take in the survey of the coast along here as laid 
down on the chart, for at noon yesterday on tak- 
ing his observation and looking at his chart, it 
made us to be 25 miles farther from land than we 
were which, with the heedless "look out" came 
very near being our death. We spoke a little 
schooner this morning bound for California in dis- 
tress. She was 64- days out from Panama and had 
lost four men from thirst and 4 others with their 
small boat who went ashore for water and did 
not return—for what reason they know not and 
they already had the scurvy aboard. We supplied 
them with water and getting three hearty cheers 
for it we parted. Poor fellows, I fear they will 
never reach their destination. A fellow of the 
name of McGruder, who came with us from New 
York on the "Abrasia" went aboard of her as 
mate and was one of the four who went ashore 
and did not return. 

Sunday 27th. We are passing the mouth of the 
Gulf of California to-day and there is a great 
change in the weather. P. is improving slowly. 

Monday 28th. We this morning about 5 o'clock 
made Cape St. Lucas and of course got the first 
sight of California, showing a range of very high 
mountains. I began to feel as if I was going to 
California sure. May my Julia feel as well and 
happy to-day as I do. God protect her while I am 
294 



RUNNING A NATIONAL BOUNDARY. 

absent. P. is doing well. A good man}' of the 
passengers have their overcoats on — a very unusual 
sight for the past four months. 

Tuesday 29th. Nothing of note has occurred 
to-day. We saw a sail, but so far off as not to dis- 
tinguish. More overcoats are in good demand. 
The weather is very cool. P. is about well. We 
had a very fine view of a whale to-day, being quite 
near and showing 30 or 40 feet of his length. He 
threw the water fine. 

Wednesday 30th. This is the day fixed upon for 
the United States and Mexican governments to 
meet at San Diego to commence running the boun- 
dary line. We have the United States Commis- 
sioner (Col. Weller*) and suite aboard; we shall 
not reach San Diego before day after to-morrow 
( Friday ) which of course breaks the treaty, the 
consequences of which we shall see. We have had 
strong head winds all the way from Panama and 
for the last 24- hours almost a gale because of which 
we have not made very fast time. We had another 
fine view of a whale to-day, being in the midst of 

-John B. Weller was a member of Congress from Ohio from 
1839 to 1845; became Lieutenant Colonel of an Ohio regiment 
in the Mexican war and succeeded to its command on the death 
of its Colonel at Monterey. When Dr. Halsey met him he had 
been recently appointed commissioner to Mexico under the 
treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. He afterwards became a citizen 
of California and in 1851 was elected United States Senator. 
Subsequently he was elected Governor of California and in i860 
was appointed United States Minister to Mexico. He died in 
New Orleans in 1875. 

295 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

a school of them spouting in every direction and 
our course right along side one, within I should 
think 50 feet of the vessel. It was a grand sight 
when he came to the surface throwing the cloud of 
spray and showing 40 or 50 feet of his length. 

Thursday 31st. We are plodding along and 
shall probably reach San Diego to-morrow. Saw 
plenty of whale to-day. Had the laugh on 4 or 5 
of the passengers who were in the habit of hook- 
ing from the galley. The cook baked a pie con- 
taining tartar emetic. They stole it and of course 
had occasion to cast up their accounts. 

Friday, June 1st. We made San Diego to-day 
before it was noon and landed Colonel Weller and 
party, during which stay one of our crew ran 
away. We left about 2 p. m. again and hope to 
reach Francisco Sunday night. 

Saturday 2nd. We found this morning that we 
were short of coal, but after looking about discov- 
ered several tons which we knew nothing of— a cul- 
pable neglect of the chief engineer, I should think. 
With prudence and using spars and other loose 
stuff about the vessel we hope to reach Francisco. 
We have had strong head winds to-day and made 
Point Conception about 2 o'clock, where it always 
blows a gale, but we weathered it. The coast 
about the Point presents a beautiful prospect of 
table land and high mountains in the rear. There 
is but little vegetation — no trees except occasion- 
296 



FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO SACRAMENTO. 

ally a cluster with patches of grass. The plains 
are covered with herds of wild cattle. 

Sunday 3d. We have had to give up our berths 
to make fuel for the engine. With the aid of them 
we hope to reach Francisco by 2 o'clock to-night. 
We have seen any quantity of whale to-day. 

Monday 4th. We arrived at Francisco about 6 
this morning after burning every thing loose about 
the vessel. The bay is a splendid one and the en- 
trance puts me in mind of New York. The tide was 
going out and there was a terrible commotion of 
the water. The town is a small place yet but alive 
with persons. We are not discouraged about "the 
diggings ' ' from what we hear. This is the wind- 
iest place I ever saw — worse than Unadilla Centre. 
We pitched our tents and remained here until 

Saturday 9th, when we left for the diggings in- 
tending to remain at Sacramento City a few days. 
We left Francisco about 5 o'clock and sailed up the 
bay about 30 miles and cast anchor for the night. 
For what reason I know not, but on endeavoring 
to raise the anchor on Sunday 10th morning, we 
could not do it and were obliged to cut the chain 
and go on. 

Monday 11th. We had a dead calm to-day and 
only made five miles. 

Tuesday 12th. We passed a very uncomfortable 

night last night. It rained all night and we all 

were wet through and, to add to our discomfort, the 

calm has continued all day and our provisions are 

297 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

getting low. "I'm going to Sacramento with my 
banjo on my knee." I can realize that song now. 

Wednesday 13th. The calm still continues and 
we have been trying to warp up, but haven't made 
but a mile or two. I know not what we shall do, 
for starvation is staring us in the face. Hurrah ! 
our agent went ashore this morning and walked to 
a small ranch and bought a small piece, 2 or 3 
pounds; gave two dollars for it which will pre- 
vent our starving a day or two longer. What 
makes our situation more horrible are the clouds of 
mosquitoes. I never saw mosquitoes before so 
large and you cannot get away from them ; every 
man's face and hands look like puff balls. 

Thursday 14th. The wind has served us very 
well to-day — at least until about three p. m., 
when we came into a bend in the river, when it 
was ahead and we had to warp again. But just 
before we had got through the bend the wiud 
caught us and away we went down stream, losing 
all we had gained and brought up at a tree on the 
opposite side of the river where we tied up for the 
night and I went ashore with my blankets and 
slept under a splendid oak tree — the first good 
night's rest I have had on the trip. 

Friday 15th. By warping this morning a short 
distance we succeeded in getting the wind in our 
favor and we finally have reached our destination, 
Sacramento City, composed of two framed build- 
ings and some 200 cloth ones and tents. The news 
298 



ON TO THE GOLD DIGGINGS. 

we get here is as good as I looked for, but all of 
our baggage is a dead weight pretty much, as it 
will cost us more to get it to the mines ( 50 dollars 
a hundred ) than it is worth and they ask 4 dollars 
a barrel per month for storing. We shall sell what 
we can and leave the rest. 

Tuesday 19th. Five of us started to-day for the 
Middle Fork of the American river the balance re- 
maining at Sacramento City. We travelled four 
miles and camped for the night under a splendid 
oak tree and we were well serenaded by a pack of 
prairie wolves. 

Wednesday 20th. We have had a day's walk 
in a broiling sun through an oak opening as 
level as a floor and have travelled 20 miles where 
there is no water. We met a man who showed us 
a lump of gold weighing 49 ounces, taken out a 
few days since. We have 25 miles to make to- 
morrow to reach Sutter's Mill, and I dread it for 
my feet are both blistered. 

Thursday 21st. We have only made 15 miles to- 
day over a hilly road and have had fine sport shoot- 
ing game along the road. The country is full of 
wild animals, particularly wolves. We saw four 
this morning within 40 rods of each other. I sup- 
pose they were after a deer which was near them. 

Friday 22d. We reached Sutter's Mill ( Coloma) 
about one o'clock to-day and found it like the other 
towns, a lively place of cloth houses and the hot- 
test place I ever saw. I think the thermometer 
299 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

stands to-day 130° in the shade. I thought Pana- 
ma was hot but this is ahead of it. We were dis- 
turbed last night between 11 and 12 by a person 
we took to be an Indian and we thought best to 
keep watch the balance of the night, each one to 
take his turn for an hour, but we had no further 
trouble. 

Saturday 23d. We have been out to try our 
washer to-day and have washed out about 8 doll- 
ars—very good for raw hands, I think. 

Monday 25th. We have been out to-day again 
and had better luck, having got 34 pwts. and 3 
grains. 

Thursday 26th. Started for the Middle Fork and 
arrived on 

Thursday 28th; nothing occurring on the road 
worthy of note. One of our company went out 
with his pan and was gone about three hours and 
brought back 9 pwts. 11 grains of gold. I thought 
I had seen a wild, desolate region before, but it 
was a mistake. Here we are hemmed in by tower- 
ing mountains, the thermometer from 100° up- 
wards and snow in sight. 

Friday 29th. We have been at work to-day, at 
least three of us, and have done very well ; made 7 
ounces, 8 pwts. and 18 grains. There is gold 
enough here but it requires very hard labor to get 
it. 

Saturday 30th. We have done well indeed to- 
300 



HOMEWARD BOUND. 

day, having dug, three of us, 11 ozs. 16 pwts. and 
18 grains. 

October 26th. We left the mines about the 1st 
of October and I made my way down to San 
Francisco where it was my intention of wintering, 
but there are more of my profession than patients 
and I shall make my way home as fast as possible. 

Thursday 1st November. We left San Francisco 
to-day at 1 o'clock p. m. and made the port of 
Monterey the following day about 1 p. m. from 
which port we sailed about 4 p.m. and have had a 
rain storm since and it still ( Saturday 3rd ) con- 
tinues to rain. 

Sunday 4th. The rain ceased about 10 last 
evening when it cleared away and the wind changed 
into the north-west. We spread our sails and we 
are now speeding away by the united aid of wind 
and steam, but with nothing to relieve the aggra- 
vating ennui of a sea voyage except the western 
coast of California and Mexico which being a 
dreary, barren waste, gives but little relief. How- 
ever, the cheering thought that I am on my way 
and with good fortune shall soon find dear friends 
and more than these my own Julia, makes my 
heart leap for jo}'. God speed the vessel. 

Monday 5th. We made the port of San Diego 
last evening where we had to take in a new supply 
of coal which detained us till this evening. Our 
next port is Mazatlan. 

301 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

Tuesday 6th. Nothing of note except fine weather 
and we are getting into a warmer climate. 

Wednesday 7th. I have had to witness a scene 
to-day which I hope never to be obliged to see again 
—a burial at sea. The earthly remains of an only 
son, the pride of doting parents in New York, were 
committed to the mighty deep— a horrible sight to 
me. God grant that I may be allowed to get back 
to mother earth when I die, let that be where it 
will, among friends or foe ; I care but little ; but 
give me a tenement in the bosom of earth. 

Saturday 13th. We made the port of Mazatlan* 
about 10 a. m. where passengers were to be allowed 
to go ashore and some had left in the small boats 
when a British naval officer came aboard and 
brought the news of the cholera being ashore and 
of course we were not permitted to leave. 

Sunday 11th. We made the port of San Bias 
about 10 a. m. but did not remain long. 

[Here the diary abruptly ends. Three day's later 
the ship must have reached Acapulco, on leaving 
which point Dr. Halsey became dangerously ill of 
fever and for nine daj r s was unconscious, as de- 
scribed by him in a previous chapter. During the 
remainder of the voyage home he was never able 

* Mazatlan lies at the entrance to the Gulf of California and 
had a population in 1891 of 12,700. Many of the houses are 
built in the old Castilian style. Mazatlan has lost something of 
its importance in late years since the Pacific railroads were 
built. Important silver mines exist near the place. In 1873 
they were valued at #2,000,000. 

302 



A LAST SCENE. 

to complete these notes of his trip. When again he 
took up the unfinished task, more than forty years 
had passed over his head and when he finally com- 
pleted it he had reached almost the end of his al- 
lotted days.] 

EDITORIAL NOTE— ILLNESS AND DEATH. 

After the attack of Chagres fever Dr. Halsey 
continued through life a man in robust health. 
The only subsequent illness he ever had was the 
last. He wrote as follows in a letter of January, 
1886: 

"Three years more bring me to seventy years of 
age. I have good reason for feeling that I may not 
reach that period, and as time develops the truth 
of my views I can dispose of my affairs to better 
advantage than executors could. T am perfectly 
aware that my right kidney is affected with dis- 
ease. I have been conscious of it for two years 
and have kept it measurably in abeyance, but it is 
gradually making progress. I have lost flesh 
within that time in very marked degree. I weigh 
less than 180, whereas I have been up to 212. 

"I tell you this, not to alarm you, as it is only 
to be looked for as a final result some time in the 
future, though serious enough to warn me to put 
my house in order. I can keep the disease under 
control for some time probably, and as long as I 
can do so, prefer to remain in business. I have no 
fears of death or the future. With my children all 
fitted for life and well situated, my life work is fin- 
303 



DR. GAIIS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

ished and I am ready to yield to the universal de- 
mand of nature. I feel that I have lived not wholly 
in vain ; that the world in some small degree may 
have been benefited. Although conscious that I 
have not filled the full measure of what might have 
been, want of training and guidance after I was 
left an orphan, is in a measure to be charged with 
the shortcomings. I am thus frank with my boys." 

After the last chapter of his Reminiscences had 
appeared in "The Unadilla Times " his health failed 
alarmingly. He wrote on Jan. 17, 1891 : "I have 
lost ground in a quite marked way during the last 
week including the sense of feeling in my right foot. 
A little exertion exhausts me. To the Post Office 
and back is about all I can do. 1 feel that my 
worldly career is nearly ended, though I hope to see 
the Spring." Three days later he wrote in what is 
probably his last letter : *' If I lose ground as fast 
as I have lost it in the past two weeks, my stay 
here is short. I have my own affairs arranged in 
as good shape as possible, [he had made his will 
between the writing of these letters and had writ- 
ten out his wishes in regard to the funeral ] and am 
ready to submit to the inevitable at any time." 

A few days before the end came, he was heard to 
say: "I am content enough, and yet I could have 
wished to visit Fred "—a reference to his son Fred- 
erick A. Halsey, detained at his home in Sher- 
brooke, Canada, by illness in his own family. His 
esteemed friend of many years, Dr. Paris Garner 
304 



"IT SINKS AND I AM READY TO DEPART." 

Clark, was now in constant attendance, visiting 
him each day and several times was called in the 
late hours of the night. During the last week he 
lost ground with unexpected rapidity, but on Sun- 
day, February 15th, was able to sit up and dictate 
some final instructions as to his Reminiscences. 

The end came on Tuesday the 17th. After a night 
of peaceful sleep, in the early forenoon of a beauti- 
ful winter's day, the sky blue and cloudless, the 
earth white with snow, he passed away as if in a 
sleep. Among his final words were these : "I am 
going, going ; but we have had a happy life. God 
bless you all." 

The approach of dissolution, which he had noted 
with professional discernment from week to week 
and day to day was thus accepted in the spirit in 
which he had performed the duties of life — without 
fear and with a manly heart. 

That serene ending has often reminded me, as in- 
deed his whole life reminds me, seen now from afar, 
of some lines by Walter Savage Land or to whom, 
in temperament and character, he had one or two 
points of close resemblance : 

" I strove with none, for none was worth my strife : 

Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art; 
I warmed both hands before the fire of life; 
It sinks, and I am readv to depart." 

The burial services were held at the family resi- 
dence on the afternoon of Thursday, February 
19th, when the Rev. Dr. R. N. Parke read the 

20 305 



DR. GAIUS L. HALSEY'S REMINISCENCES. 

twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes and prayers for the 
family and others present. Judge Gaius L. Halsey 
of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., a nephew and namesake of 
whom he was very fond, delivered an address. The 
day was cold, clear and still, sun and snow filling 
the world with light. Because of ice on the side- 
walks, the procession passed up the centre of the 
street — a line that reached from the doorway of 
his home to the old churchyard path. When the 
mound had been raised up, evergreen boughs were 
made to cover it. On the following morning the 
ground was wrapped in a light covering of newly 
fallen snow from which rose up the large mound, 
the evergreens concealed beneath the mantle of 
white. 

"Let me not mourn for my father; let me do 
worthily of him; let me walk as blamelessly 
through this shadow world." 



306 



INDEX 



INDEX. 



Abbey, John, 109 

Abel, Seth, 26 

Academy, the, 79, 114, Col. 
North and, 131 

Acapulco, city of, 270 

Adams, F. O., 140 

Adams, Rev. Norman H., 57, 
and the Anti Rent War, 66, 
•70; comes to Unadilla,85-86; 
his grave, 89 137; his mar- 
riage, 164, 167; his new 
home, 168, 171; a donation 
for, 173, 196; popularity of, 
207 

Adcock, Dariel, 98. 

Albany and Susquehanna Rail- 
road, the, 131 

Albout, settlement of, 3 

Albright, Frederick, 283 

Allen, , 99 

Allen, Chester K , 1 18 

Allen, Ethan, 204 

Allen, Marvin C, 1 18 

Allen, T , 162 

Ameri an River, Middle Fork 
of, 254-256; mining on, 257 

Ames, Mrs. A S., 144 

Amsden, Albert T„ 56 

Andre, John, 102 

Anti- Kent War, the, 65 

Antietam, battle of, 281 

Arms, Sylvester, 105 

Arnold, Abimeleck, 103 

Arnold, Benedict, 102 

Arnold, Frank B., 128-129 

Arnold, Stephen, 22 



Atkins, Eldridge, 24.3 
Axtell, Aaron, pioneer black- 
smith, 13; his lands, 15, 32 

5° 
Axtell, Moses, 14 
Ayres, Benjamin H., his busi 

ness, 140; his home, 195, 

20 1 ; his family, 202, 208 
Bacon, Frank, 56, 194 «*_ 
Bacon, ^amuel D., his home, 

44; creek near his home, 

52,75; his father, 101, 206. 
Bacon, Whiting, 101 
Bainbridge. town of, 7, 8, 125 
Bailey, Captain, 239, 240 
Bailey, Horace E„ 142, 201. 
Baits, Col. David, supervisor, 

44, 45, 49, 52 
Baker, Rev. E Folsom, 116 
Baker, David, 102 
Baker, Horace, 102 
Baker, William, 102 
Balestier, Robert S., 283 
Banyar, Gouldsborough, his 

patent, 12, 14, 16; gift of 

farm by to St, Matthew's 

Church, 88, 149 
Baptist Church, the, 91 
Bartholomew, George W., 243 
Bartholomew, Laurence A., 

282, 283, 284 
Bartholomew, Alfred C, 283 
Barlow, A. J., 39 
Bates, Jerome, 56, no 
Baxter Saw Mill, the, 212 
Beach, Henry A., 134 



309 



INDEX. 



Beach, Abijah H., 29; his 
home. 57; his family, 83, 
89, 139. 190, 202 

Beach, Timothy, the Ouleout 
settler, 5, 58, 73, 191 

Beadle, George E , 39 

Beardsley, Levi, his " Remi- 

• riiscences" 120, 148, 150 

Belknap, E. C, his home, 57, 
138, 198, 206 

Benedict, A. N,, 104 

Benedict, Hiel E., 195 

Benedict, Hiram, 135 

Benjamin, Moses G., 1 12 

Bennett, Phineas, 105 

Benton, Albert, his store, 60; 
his home, 61, 85, 93, 137 

Benton, Caleb, 54 

Benton, Stephen, his purchase 
of land, 15; and the Cats- 
kill Turnpike, 53, 60; his 
grave, 88; a Mason, 89; 
gives land for a street, 92; 
his store, 112; his distillery, 
137, 160, 162 

Benton, Thomas H., 239 

Benton & Fellows, 137, 197, 
198 

Betts, Eliza, 169 

Betts, Peter, 15, 60 

Betts, Samuel, 99 

Bidwell, Jacob, 101 

Bidwell, Simeon, 91, 102; his 
home, 195 

Bigelow, David, 104 

Billings, Jalleal, 107 

Binnekill, the, mills on, 74; 
origin of 76-77 

Birch, Albert G., 107, 109, 250 

Birch, Edmund, B., 250 

Birch, Jeremiah, 106 

Birch, Lyman, 250 



Bishop's Hotel, 115 

Bissell, Benjamin, 140 

Bissell, Betsey, 140 

Bissell, family of 19 

Bissell, Daniel, his purchase 
of land, 14; sketch of 16- 
18; his hotel, 17; town 
meetings in house of, 44, 
57; his sawmill, 75; sale of 
his mill, 76, 80; his grave, 
89 

Bissell, Guido L., his purchase 
of land, 14; his activities, 
18, 21; his home, 55, 60, 
68, 140; his grave, 88; 
builds a bridge, 91, 95, 113 

Bissell, Hannah, 19, 140 

Bissell, John, his island farm, 
57» 75> 7 6 » 93; nis home, 
140 

Blakely, 181 

Boardman, Elijah, 30, 55 

Bolles, Capt. Frederick A., 
65, 66, 206 

Bolles, Frank G., 66, 281, 284 

Border Wars, the 3, 4, 100; 
survivors of, 154, 155 

Bostwick, Capt. Amos, 55, 134 

Bottom, John, 143 

Bottom, Sophia, 90 

Boult, Jacob, 26 

Bragg, Gen. E S., 79 

Bragg, Joel, his mills, 77-80, 
in, 207; his grave, 89; 
his orchard, 115; burning 
of his mills, 160, 161, 162; 
his hotel, 57, 140, 165, 191, 
202; his death, 174, 201 

Brant, Joseph, 155 

Brant, N. F., 80 

Brant, R. M., 196 

Brannon, Samuel, 252 



310 



INDEX. 



Bristol and California Co., the tlements on, 101-102, 212 



243 
Browne, Thurston, 53 
Briggs, Mrs. H^nry, 138 
Bryan, Alexander, 55 
Bryan, Fowler P., 55, 89 
Bryant, Mrs W. S, 66 
Buckley, Daniel, 99 
Buckley, Oliver B., 57, 139, 

202 
Burdick, Jonathan, 102 
Buchanan, James, 130 
Buell, Abel, 125 
Bushnell, Capt A , 98 
Butler, Capt Frank, 215 
Butler, John, the Tory, 156 
Butler, John, 96, 215 
Butler, Leonard L., 283 
Butler, Walter N., 156 
Butler, Col. William, 103 
Bundy, 214 

Caicos Islands, 290 
California, gold fever in, 222; 

Dr Halsey's experiences in, 

256-266 
Camp, Charlotte, 97 
Canfield, H. Y. 80 
"Captain Horn", 204, 207 
Cape St. Lucas, 294 
Carpenter, Chester W., 206 
Carley, John, 32, 150 
Carley, Jonathan, 104 
Carmichael, Edward, 24, 210, 

283 
Carmichael, Lewis, or Luke, 

24, 87, 210 
Carmichael, William, 210 

Carr, 99 

Carr, Ilezekiah, 99 

Carr, William, 99 

Carr's Creek, road to, 49; set- 



Carr, John, 212 

Case, Abel, 26 

Castle, Daniel, 98; his home 

J 35> x 95; his sho P> HO 
Catskill, 10, 31, 35,47, 48, 146, 

152, 183 
Catskill Turnpike, the, 7; its 

construction, 31, ill; stage 

line on, 121, 146, 160; 

Fourth of July on, 151-152; 

early days on, 181, 182 , 
Catskill and Erie Railroad, 

the, 164, 168 
Chagres, 227, 274, 290 
Chapin, William, 101 
Cherry Valley, village of, 43, 

156 
Church, Richard Billings, 181 
Church, Simeon, 98 
Church, Col. Timothy, 181 
Clark, Jehiel, 98 
Clark, Dr. Paris Garner, 304 
Clapp, Col., 148 
Clark, Elizabeth, 71 
Clark, James W., 126 
Clark, John C, 148 
Cleveland, Grover, 80 
Cleveland, Nancy, 69 
Clyde, Alvin, 283 
Cockburn, Sir George, 77 
Cole, Thomas, 38 
Collins, James. 135 
Coloma, town of, 251, 266 
Colwell, Dr. John, his grave, 

89; sketch of, 119; member 

of the Unadilla Hunting 

Club, 148, 168; goes to 

New York, 172, 173, 191; 

anecdote of, 208; frolics 

with, 217-218 
Compounce Pond in Con- 



311 



INDEX 



necticut, 223 

Cone, Dr. Adanijah, his hotel, 
58, 112; his coming to 
Unadilla, 64, 65, 83; his 
grave. 89; his home, 139; 
his office, 144, 191, 199, 215 

Cone, Col. Daniel, his pur- 
chase of land, 16, 64; his 
grave, 89, 93, 118; his 
home, 139, 198; his shop, 
144 

Cone, Frederick L., his home, 
64, 139; his business, 65, 67, 
199 

Cone, Gardner, 64, 89 

Cone, Gilbert, his purchase of 
land, 16, 64; his grave, 89, 
93,118; his home, 139, 199; 
his shop, 144 

Cone, Julia A., 65 

Cone, Lewis G., his home, 64; 
his business, 65 66 

Cone, Salmon G., his resi- 
dence, 13, 35, 64; sketch 
of, 67-68; his farm, 107, 
286 

Condensery, the, 34 

Cooper, Fenimore, 193 

Cooperstown, village of, 7, 8 

Coon, Peter, 98 

Cowles, Luthc, 91 

Crandall, Hiel, 141 

Crandall, 203 

Crandall, Mrs. Isaac, 138 

Crandall, Laban, 52 

Crane, William H., 283 

Crane, O. F. W., 198 

Cranston, John, 99, 101 

Crooker, 95 

Crooker, Edmund, 95 

Crooker, George, 77 

Crooker, Henry B., 282, 283, 



284 
Crooker, Mrs. IT. B., 213 ; 
Crooker, Jacob, 77 
Crooker, Sampson, his home, 

58, 63; his mills, 76-78; 

builds St. Matthew's Church, 

86, 201 
Crookerville, settlement of, 92, 

94-95, 2I 3 
Cruces, 274, 275 
Cuba, island of, 290 
Curtis, Jeremiah C , no 
Curtis, J. Delos, 109, 1 10 
Curtis, Lysander, 96 

Darby, William, 159 
" Daisy ", a dog,2i9 
Davis, Thomas J., 101 
Davis, Peter, 101 
Dayton, Henry, 109 
De Forest, Abel, 95, 96 
DeFotest, Lyman tL, 140, 202 
DeForest, AJason, 136 
DeLai cey, Bishop, 87 
Derrick, William. 99 
Dewey, Harper W., 101 
Dickens, Charles, 9 
Dickinson, Daniel S., 129 
Dodge, A. L., 243 
Dodge, G. A., 37 
"Dr. Bean Pole'', 215 
Douglas, Stephen A., 80, 130 
Dresser, A. H., 224 
Dresser, George W., 243 
Duley, M. W., 76, 80 
Dwight, Timothy, 54, 58 

Edson and Hanford, 198 

Edson, Miss A., 161 

Edson, Dr. Willis, sketch of, 
41; bis office, 143; his 
home, 200; anecdote of, 218 

Edson, Darwin, 41 



312 



NDEX. 



Edson, William D., 41 

Eells, Horace, his home, 31, 

134, 193. *94 
Eells, John, 68; sketch of, 70, 

71, 90; his home, 138, 198; 

runs lor supervisor, 163, 171 
Eells Tannery, the, 203 
Eldridge, Silva, 170 
Embargo, the, 34 
Emory, William H., 63 
Eyre, Governor of Jamaica, 278 

Fairfield Medical College, 

the, 189 
Fancher, Seleck H., 122, 193, 

216 
Farnsworth, L , 98 
Ferguson, Richard, 141 
Fellows & Sands, 126 
Fellows, Major Christopher 

D., his coming to Unadilla, 

61-62; his mills, 95, 126; 

his store, 137, 139; his 

home, 198, 206 
Fellows, George B., 39 
Fellows, John, 62 
Fellows, Mead & Finch, 198 
Ferris, Eber, 93, 99 
Ferry, Elijah, 77 
Finch, David, his arrival in 

Unadilla, 68; sketch of, 71- 

72; his grave, 89; his home, 

133, 198 
Finch, William T., 72, 193, 

206 
Fisk, Rufus, 96 
Fisk, George L., 584 
Fitch, Amasa, 15 
Fitch, Dr., of Franklin, 189 
Fitch, Jonathan, 15; his home, 

16 
Fitch, William, 15, 45 



Fletcher, Parker, 101 

Fort Schuyler, 99 

Foster's Tavern, 92 

Foster, Moses, 105 

Foster, Norman D., 104, 106 

Fox, Bradford, J. D.. 283 

Francis, Major David, 109 

Franklin, village of, 54, 125, 

189 
Frasier, C, 104 
Frederick, i\Jd., 282 
Freedom Lodge, 89 
Fremont, Gen John C, 237 
Fremont, Mrs John C, 239 
Fuller, Abraham, 104 

Gates, Mrs. Calvin, 65 
Gates, Isaac, 47 
Germaine, Lord George, 155 
Gibbs. Dr. E. T.. 189 
Gordon, Samuel, 95, 164 
Gordon, William, 95 
Gorgona, 227, 228, 291 
Golden Gate, the, 242 
Goldsmith, B. M., 101 
Goodrich, Jared, 243 
Gould, Jay, 66 
Graves, Edward H., 38 
Graves, Thomas H., 195 
Green, "Bill", 217 
Grannis, Marshall, A., 282, 

283, 284. 
Gray, A. P., 68, 70; his home, 

198, 200 
Gray, Mrs. A. P., 206 
Gray, Eliza, 131 
Greeley, Horace, 131 
Gregory, Caroline, 118 
Gregory, Mrs. Curtis, 206 
Gregory, Ebenezer, 97 
Gregory, H. C, 135 
Gregory Hill, 97 



21 



313 



NDEX. 



Gregory, Jared C, 97, 135 
Gregory, Milo B., 57, 61, 122, 

197, 281 
Gregory, Dr. Nelson B., his 

home, 57, 79, 140, 201; 

sketch of, 97 
Gregory, Noah, 97 
Griffith, Abner, 45, 50, 99 
Griswold & Cone, 200 
Griswold, Horace, 138, 163, 

197 
Griswold, Sheldon, his home, 

73, 200; his shop, 138, 198 
" Grog Shop Creek ", 52 
Gulf of California, the, 294 
Gwin, William W , 239 

H/Vdley, Pkof. James, 190 
HaUey, Frederick A., 304 
Halsey, Dr. Gaius, of Kort- 
right, an oration by, 152- 
158; his life in Kortright, 
181, 183, 184, 186, 152 
Halsey, Dr. Gaius L.. of Una- 
dilla. 56; his grave, 89, 152; 
his Reminiscences, 177-178; 
life in Kortright, 179- 189; 
coming to Unadilla, 191; 
early life in Unadilla, 193- 
221 ; in Panama and Cali- 
fornia, 222-275; n ' s return 
to Unadilla, 279-281; Cali- 
fornia diarv, 288; last ill- 
ness and death, 302-306 
Halsey, Judge Gaius L, of 

Wilkes-Barre, 305 
Halsey, Juliet Carrington, 
dedication to V; her mar- 
riage, 220; letters to from 
the gold diggings, 257, 260 

277. 2 94, 3 01 
Halsey, Lavantia, 220 



Halstead, Henry I., 284 
Hampshire Hollow, settle- 
ment of, 50, 99 IOO 
Hanford, David, 206 
Hanford, John, 203 
Hanford, Louisa, 206 
Hanford, Khoda, 90 
Hanford, Theodore, 26, 64 
Hanford,Capt.Uriah, his lands, 

13, 26, 90; his home, 139 
Hanna, William, 5, 54, 103 
Hardy, George W., 63 
Harper, Robert, 93 
Harrington, Stephen, «;i 
Hartwick Seminarv, 185 
Hawks, George, 282 
Hawks, Erastus S., 283 
Hawley, Rev. Gideon, 90 
Hawley, W. II., 39 

Hayes, Rev. , 143,200 

Hayes, Augusta, 116 
Hayes, Clark I., quoted, 32, 
55, 114; sketch of, 116-117; 
his home, 134, 206 
Hayes, Capt Daniel, 140, 202 
Hayes, Frederick T., his life 
in New York, 117; a friend 
of Henry C. Noble, 159, 
160, 161, 166; notes by, 
173; his death, 174 
Hayes, Isaac, 7; comes to 
Unadilla, 28, 60; his home, 
3°. 55> *34; sketch of, 35- 
36, 73. 83,84; his grave, 88, 
114, 116; his business, 159, 
160, 161, 194, 207 
Hayes, Mrs. Isaac, 114 
Hayes, Mary, 161 
Haves, Jacob, 16, 37, 58, 135 
Hayes, Joel M., 37 
Hayes, Susan E., 85, 116 
Hayes, Thomas, 37, 118 



314 



NDEX 



Haynes, John, 99 
Hayti, Island of, 290 
Heath, George W., 69 
Heath, Col. Thomas, 65, 69 
Hayden, Elijah, 49 

Hemenway, , 99 

Hill, Nathaniel, 47 

Hine, Dr. Francis W., of 

Franklin, 189, 199 
Hobart, Bishop, 85, 87 
Hodges, A'naham, 6, 104 
Hodges, Albert T., 80 
Hodges, Hezekiah, 6 
Hodges, Isaac, 6 
Hodges, Peter, 56 
Hodges, William T., 6 
Hoffman, Harry, 109 
Hoffman, John T., 131 
Holmes, Abel, 98 
Holmes, Amos 98 
Hooker. Gen. Joseph, 239 
Hough, Col David, 105, 163 
Hough, John, 139 
Hovey, Benjamin, 49 
Hovey, Jesse K., 90 
Hovey, Mary, 90 
Hovey, Muses, 105 
Howard, Dr. Frederick S., 40, 

159 
Howard, Henry H., 40; his 

home, 195, 206 
Howard, Mrs. Henry H., 135 
Howard, Samuel, 40 
Howell, Capt. Edward, 88 
Howell, Peter, 141 
Hubbel I, Lester T., his home, 

73,86,89, 115 
Huboell's Mills, 47 
Hughston, Charles N., 286 
Hughs on, James, 5, 32, 88 
Hughst >n, Col. Robert S., 41 
Hughston, Mrs. Robert S, 206 



Hughston, William J., 49, 91 
Hull, Margaret, 65 
Hunter's Hall. 148 
Huntington, Collis P, 25; 

goes to California, 235, 250 
Huntington, Dr. Gurdon, his 

purchase of land, 14, 18; 

his store, 20, 136, 159; 

sketch of, 24-26; town 

clerk, 44; his home, 15, 24, 

3«. 35» 37 5 6 » "3 194,199, 
281 
Hurlburt, Mrs , , 135 

"Indian Monument, the", 

105, 149 
Ingraham, William, 143 

Jamaica, island of, 276-278 
Jarvi«, Melancthon B , 73,144 
Jennings, Edson S., 39 
Jennings, Mrs. Edson S., 206 
Jeyes, Miss, 140 

Johnson, Dr , , 145 

Johrson, George H., 283, 284 
Johnson, Sir William, 103 
Johnston Settlement, the, 4, 5 
Johnston, family of, 6, 103 
Johnston, Hugh, 104 
Johnston, William, 233 
Johnston, Rev. William, 233 
Johnston, Witter, 104 
Jordan, George B., 282, 283 
Joyce, George S., 284 
June, Titus, and Angevine, 209 

Keats, John, 229 
Keeler, Rev. Jimes, 85 
Kilkenny, road to, 51, 131,139 
Kingsley, Bradford, 85, 118, 

197 
Kingsley, Erastus, 64; his 

wife, 65; his grave, 89, 1 14; 



315 



INDEX 



sketch of, 117-118; anec- 
dote of, 119; his hotel,H5, 
190, 196, 209, 210 

Kirby, Reuben, 21 1 

Kirby, Theodora. 211 

Kingston, island of Jamaica, 
276-278 

Kortright Centre, village of, 
152, 180-189, 263 

Kortright, Laurence, 180 

Lamb, , 98 

Lamb, Gurdon, 196 
Lamb, Lewis, 196 
Lamb, Samuel, 101 
Lane, Smith, 198 
Lansing, family of, 12, 13, 16 
Larraway, J. I., 206 
Lathrop, Elisha, 50, 99 
Lathrop, Levi, 101 
Laurens, town of, 43 
Lebanon, Conn., Unadilla 

pioneers from, 5, 15, 16, 17, 

24, 125 
Lee, Philemon, 109 
Lesure, Asa, 101 
Lesure, Bethel, 99 
Lesure, John, 101 
Little, E. S., 39 
Livingston, John, 12, 13, 14 
Lock, Nathaniel, 48 
Loomh, David P., 72, 141, 201 
Lord & Bottom, 114 
Luther, Elisha, 105 
Luther, Martin B , 106, 286 

McAuley, Robert F., 185 
McAuley, Rev. William, 184- 

185 
McCall, Turner, 121, 141 
McLaurey, Mrs William, 135 
McMaster, Capt. David, 104 
Mallery, Albert, 141, 201 



Mann, Dr. , 200 

Marble, Edward, 197 

Martin Brook, 6, 20, 74; high 
water in, 23; road along, 
50; and the Binnekill, 76, 
203 

Martin, Benjamin, 136 

Martin, Edward, 136 

Martin, Robert H., 136, 166 

Martin, Solomon, his lands, 
14, 16, 18; arrives in Una- 
dilla, 20-23; hi s store, 22; 
as sheriff, 22, 31; town 
meetings in his house, 44, 
48; helps build a road, 49, 
5°> 53; his home, 56, 8^; 
his grave, 88. 113, 136 

Martin, Mrs Solomon, 21 

Martin, William, 136 

Mason, Judge, , 215 

Masonic Hall, the, 72, 114, 
115,122, 136,195 

Massereau, John, 49 

Maxwell, James, 96, 98 

Mazatlan, 301, 302 

Mead, Elias, 144 

Mead, Rufus G , 90, 142, 160, 
168; anecdote of, 208; in 
California, 250 

Mechanics' Hall, the, 70, 91, 
196 

Meeker, Alanson H , 281 

Merriam, Samuel, 99 

Merriam's Sawmill, 52 

Merithew, Windsor, 102 

Merriman, Theophilus, 101 

Methodist Church, the, 91 

Miller, Henry L., 126 

Mohawk and Hudson Rail- 
road, 166 

Monell, Judge, , 148 

Monfort, Garrett, 90 



316 



NDEX. 



Monfort, Sarab, 90 
Monroe, Thomas, 109 
Monterey, 301 

Morgan, , 55 

Morris, Gen. Jacob, 99 

Morris, Judge, , 148 

Morse, Bennett W., 211 
Mudge, William L., 109 
Mulford, Mary A., 220 
Musson, Richard, 98 
Musson Robert S., 99 
Mygatt, Clarissa A , 127 
Mygatt, Henry R., 37, 127 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 78 
Nash, Rev. Daniel, 29, 36, 82, 

90 
New England, influence of on 

Unadilla, 10-11 
Nichols, Tyrus, 193 
Nichols, Lewis S , 282 
Nichols, David, 283 
Nichols, Edmund, 283 
Niles, Joseph, 101 
Niles, Samuel, 102, 202 
Noble & Emory, 196 
Noble & Hayes, 18; their 

arks, 33-34; their store, 51, 

98, 90, in; their distillery, 

133, 134, 159, 193, 194 

Noble & Howard, 194 

Noble, Anna, 30 

Noble, Carrington T., 29 

Noble, Judge Charles C , 31 ; 
sketch of, 39, 55, 79, 97, 
135; his death, 194; his of- 
fice, 195 

Noble, Mrs. Charles C, tri- 
bute to, 39, 97, 114; her 
early home, 166, 206 

Noble, Clark, 29 

Noble, Cui tis, comes to Uua- 



dilla, 28; in New Milford, 
30; his business, 30-35, 38; 
his home, 55, 60, 73, 83; 
his grave, 88, 134, 163 

Noble, Edward B , 29 

Noble, Elnathan, 29 

Noble, Col. George H., 31 ; 
sketch of, 38, 55, 63; let- 
ter from, 85, 159, 161 ; com- 
ments on cholera, 172; his 
death, 173; his home, 197, 
198 

Noble, Mrs. George H., 206 

Noble, George N., 29 

Noble, Miss H. A., 161 

Noble, Henry C, 1 17, 147; 
his diary, 159-174; his 
death, 173 

Noble, Jesse, 133 

Noble, John, 29 

Noble, John Henry, 29 

Noble, Louis LeGrand, 37 

Noble, Thomas, 28 

Noble, Thomas H., 27 

Noble, Whitney P., 27 

North & Co., 132 

North, Benjamin, 129, 130 

North, Robert, 129, 130 

North, Samuel, 130 

North, Col. Samuel, in the 
Anti Rent War, 66; grave 
of 89, 112, 124; sketch of, 
129-132; County Clerk, 1 30; 
Canal Appraiser, 131 ; his 
account of the village, 133- 
145; quoted, 147; goes to 
New York, 171, 172 

North, Samuel S , 24, 132 

North, Thomas, 129 

North, Thomas G., 129, 131, 
284 

North, Thomas G., & Co , 132 



317 



INDEX. 



Norton, Capt Andrew J., 243, 
264, 268, 272, 273; saves 
Dr Halsey, 274-275, 279 

Norton, Rev S. H., 88 

Nye, Obel, 104 

Odell, Dr. Evander, his 
home, 44. 140, 146; trustee 
of the academy, 128; sketch 
of, 220 

Ogden, David, 104 

Ogden, Daniel, 104 

Ogden, Major, E. A , 166, 171 

Ogden, Henry A., his grave, 
89; his office, 120; his 
home, 142, 148; his death, 

173 
Oghwaga, the Indian village, 

69, 178 

Old England District, the, 42 

" Old New York Frontier, the," 
4, 54, 178, 180; extract 
from 279-280 

Olds, Alonzo, 282, 283 

Olds, Milo, 282, 283 

Onderdonck, Bishop, ,171, 

172 

Oneonta, town of, 7, 8, 43, 
104, 163 

Oriskany, battle of, 99 

Osborn, John, 203, 204 

Otego, town of, 7, 43, 104 . 

Otsego, county of, 46; forma- 
tion of, 42, 43; growth of 
population in, 44, 47, 82, 
104, 147 

Otsego Lake, early settlement 

at, 3 
Ouleout, the early settlements 

on, 3, 5, 49, 54, 104, 150, 

270, 271 
Overheyser, Barrett, 47 



Owens, Evan?, 199 
Oxford, town of, 49 

Packard, Mr. , 281 

Page, Miss E B., 161 

Page, Jared, 62 

Page, Maria, 127 

Page, Robert, 63 

Page, Sherman, 38; comes to 
Unadilla, 62, 83, and St. 
Matthew's church, 84, 86; 
grave of, 88, 89.92,93,127; 
his home, 142; and the 
Hunting Club, 148- 149, 160, 
197; his marriage, 240 

Page, Vincent, 63; in Califor- 
nia, 250 

Palmer, John, 99 

Palmer, Lee, 99 

Panama, Dr. Halsey's account 
0^227,228-236; his return 
to, 270-273, 290 

Panama Railroad Co., 224 

Paper Mill region, the, 3, 1 02- 
106 

Parke, Rev. Dr. R. N., 305 

Parker, Julge, A. J., 131 

Parsons, William H., 39 

Patterson, Samuel, 99 

Peam, Joseph, 53 

Perry, Rev. Marcus A., 85 

Phelps Horace G., 107 

Phelps, Philo L.. 90 

Pierce, Isaac, 243, 293, 294 

Piersol, Nathaniel, 161 

Place, "Elder", 197 

Place, Elijah, 96 

Place, William J., 282, 284 

PlainviUe, Conn., 221, 243, 2 

Piatt, Brewster, 77 

Pompey, a negro, 149 

Pomp's Eddy, 149 



318 



NDEX. 



Poplar Hill, 102, 149 

Porter, Admiral D D., 239 

Porto Bello, 291 

Pooler, John, 19, 32 

Pooler, S., 163 

Post, Abraham, 101 

Postmasters of Unadilla, Isaac 
Hayes, 36, 160; Roswell 
Wright, 113; Chauncey 
Slade, 286; Mr Packard, 
281 ; Henry VanDusen,28i; 
Frank G. Holies, 281; A.H. 
Meeker, 281 

Potter, Harvey, 99 

Potter, William, 47 

Presbyterian Church, the, 58, 
90 

Price, Nicholas, 136 

Priest, Amos, 134, 194 

Priest, Mrs Araus, 194 

Prindle, Judge, 218 

Prindle, Zachariah, 217 

Queenstown, battle of, 100 

Raitt, George D , printer of 

this volume, iv; 39 

Rathbone, Gen , , 148 

Reed, Phineas, 109 
Reynolds, George W., 78 
Richardson, James, 283, 284 
Rider, Gardner, 21 1 
Rifenbark, Adam, 26 
Rifenbaik, W. E , 143 
Ripley, Benjamin P., 39 
Robbins, Ephraim, 101 
Robertson, Neil, his purchase 

of land. 16. 64; his home, 

69, 144, 200; his grave, 89; 

his sh- p, 139 
Robertson, Samuel, 206 
Rogers Hollow, 96, 139, 203 
Robinson, , 142 



Rogers, Jabez, 108 

Rogers, Joseph. 109 

Rogers, Perry P, 166, 108, 1 16 

Rogers, Peter, 95, 283 

Rogers, Samuel, 107-108 

Root, Major C. P., 129 

Root, Gen. Erastus, 102, 186 

Round Top, 149 

Rowley, Capt Seth, 99-100 

St Matthew's Church, men 
buried in churchyard of. 11, 
19, 72, 77; organization of, 
82-89, 112, 114, J 1 6, 120, 
142, 149, 161, 201, 207 
Sacramento, city of, 246, 250, 
251-253, 255, 266; many 
physicians in, 267, 297, 298 
Sacramento River, 247-250 
San Diego, 242, 296 
Sand Hill, 90, 99 
Sand Hill Creek, 50, 52, 53 
Sands, Dr. Andrew J., 126 
Sands, Benjimin, 124 
Sands, Elizabeth E., 126 
Sands, Frederick A., 37, 63; 
his grave, 89 91; sketch of, 
124-127; his home, 197 
Sands, J. Fred., 63 127 
Sands, Jerome B., 126 
Sands, .viarcellus, 126 
Sands, Judge Obadiah, 124 
Sands' Point, 124 
Sands, Dr. William G., 126 
Sanders, Joshua C, 126 
San Francisco Bay, 242 
San Francisco, city of, 244- 
246; sudden growth of, 267, 
297 
Saunders, Benjamin. 93 
Saunders, B. G. W., 100 
Saunders, Capt Elisha S., 45, 



319 



INDEX 



46, 100 
Scott, " Granther ", 109 
Scott, David, 138 
Scott, Mary, 136 
Scott, Seth, 109 
Scott, Silas, 109 
Scott, W H., 171 
Scramling, Henry, 45, 104 
Seeley, Holley, 90, 144 
Sewell, William H., 120 

Seymour, Miss , 126 

Seymour, Horatio, 1 31 
Shavers' Corners, settlement 

at, 107 
Shaw, iVJ orris, 282 
Sherman, Frederick T., 116 

Sherwood, , 105 

Sidney Centre, settlement at, 

94, 101 
Sidney, village of, first settled, 

3.4 
Sinclair, John, 258 
Sisson, Aaron, 99 
Sisson, Giles, 26 
Sisson, John, 45, 99 
Siver, David, 284 
Siver, Charles C, 284 
Skinner, Jesse, 109 
Slade, Chauncey, 105, 286 

Slade, Dr. , 105 

Slade, Michael, 283 
Slavin, Mrs , 193 
Sliter, Jonas, 26 
Smith, Chailes, 250 
Smith, Edward, 99 
Smith, Edwin J., 121, 200 
Smith, Ephraim, ioi, 104 
Smith, Israel, 49 
Smith, Jarvis, 99 
Smith, J seph, 99 
Smith, Samuel, 101 
Smith Settlement, the, 102 



Smith, Sylvester, 100 
Smyth, William T., 282 
Southington, Conn., 221 
Spaulding, Gaius, 101 
Spanish Bar, in California, 266 
Spaulding, Ira, 121 
Spencer, Amos, 107 
Spencer, J -nathan, 106 
Spencer, Orange, 106 
Spencer, Philip M , 283 
Spencer, P rter, 107 
Spencer, Simeon, 107 
" Spencer Street ", 106 
Spencer, W D., 93 
Sperry, Rev. Lyman, 69-70, 

137. 197 
Sperry, Watson R., 69 
Spickerman, family of, 150 
Stark, Jonathan, 106 
Stone, LeGrand, 135 
Stoyles, Stephen, 104 . 

Steele, , deputy sheriff, 66 

Sternberg farm, the, 73 

Sullivan, R. F. f 39 

Sumner, Mrs. Harriet Bis- 

sell, 17, 18, 76 
Sutter, Capt. John A., 251, 255 
Sutter's Koit, 251 
Sutter's Mill, 256, 266, 299 
Sweet, CI ester, 212 
Sweet, Dr. Joseph, 120, 197, 

196,281 
Sweet, Dr. Joshua J., 282 
Sweet, Marvin P.. 56, 136, 197 

Taylor Hannah, 65 
Taylor, Lydia, 65 
Teller, R. K., 93 113, 218, 201 
Thatcher, George, 73 
Thatcher, Capt. J-siah, sketch 

of, 73, 83,84, 85; grave of, 

88, 164 



320 



NDEX 



Thompson, Elisha, 95 
Thompson, Foster, 1 21 
Thompson, William J., 72; 
enlarges St. Matthew's 
church, 87, 95; as a builder, 
115, 128; his home, 136; 
his marriage, 169, 196, 197 
Thornton, Jeremiah, 106 
Tingley House, the, 143 
Trinity Church, New York, 86 
Trumbull, Jonathan, 17 
Tulare Swamp, in California, 

248 
Turk's Island, 290 

Unadilla Bank, the, 114 

Unadilla, original settlement 
3, 43, 103, 280; early town 
records of, 44-53; as a 
county seat, 47; upper 
bridge at, 91; lower bridge 
at, 92; school at, 93; Ho- 
ratio Seymours visit to, 131 ; 
water works of, 131, growth 
of, 146-147; Hunting Club 
of, 148; " up-street and 
down-street ", 163; Fourth 
ot July at, 164; described in 
1840, 193-203; men from 
in California, 250; men 
from in Civil War, 282-284; 
origin of the name, 279-280 

Unadilla House, the, 58, 92, 
148, 200 

Unadilla Centre, 45; Metho 
dist church, at, 91, 97, 98, 
297 

Unadilla, county of, 47 

Unadilla Hunting Quo, meet- 
ings of, 148 

Unadilla, Neb., 41 

Unadilla River, settlement at 



mouth of, 3, 42 

"Unadilla Times, the", edi- 
tors of, 38, 39, 159; R- S. 
Musson's article in, 99; Syl- 
vester Smith's article in,ioi ; 
Col. North's account of vil- 
lage in, 133-145; Dr. Hal- 
sey's reminiscences in, 177— 
288 

" Unadilla Weekly Courier ",39 

United States Hotel in New 
York, 278 

Upton Patent, the, 46 

Utter, Julius, 1 10 

Van Cott, John, 71, 144, 200 
Van Dusen, Henrv, 281 
Vandervooit, M. R., 283, 284 
Vandervoort, Wesley, 283. 284 
Veley, Miss Elizabeth, 202,206 
Veley, John, 19 
VanDewerker, John, 104 
VanVecbten, family of, 12, 13, 
14 

Walton, William, 130 
Walker, Dr. David, 37, 56, 

136, 162, 163; his store,i67 
Wallace Patent, the, 8; owner 

of, 12; lots in, 1 2-1 6, 17 
Warrener, Wheeler, 197, 203 
Washburn. Jr., Luke, 138 
Washington, George, 153 
Watson & Hayes, 196 
Watson & Noble, 196 
Watson, Arnold B., 86, 89; 

sketch of, 113-U4, 115,126; 

his home, 135, 195, 140; 

his new home, 170, 203, 

207, 208 
Watson, Mrs. Arnold B., 206 
Watson, E. S., 39 



321 



INDEX 



Watson, Henry M., 116 
Watson, Julia N., 116 
Watson, Sarah A., 116 
Watson, Susan H , 116 
Watson, William H., 116 
Wattles's Ferry, pioneers at, 5, 
7, 16, 21; turnpike from, 47, 
53> 54» 62; toll bridge at, 
109 
Wattles, Nathaniel, 5,44, 68, 

88 
Wattles, Kachel, 68 
Wattle>, Sluman, 5; business 
relations with Solomon Mar- 
tin, 21-22; builds a road, 
48, 49; and the Catskill 
Turnpike, 53, 58, 108, 125 
Wauteghe Creek, the, 43 
Webb, James, 283, 284 
Webb, Thomas T., 283 
Webster, Daniel, 1 1 
Wiedman, Jacob F , 284 
Weidman, Peter, 75, 284 
Weller, John B., 239, 295, 296 
Wellman, John, 102 
Wells Bridge, 94 
Wheaton, Benjamin, 100 
Wheeler, Rev. Russell, 29, 85 
Wheeler, Eugene R., 284 
Wheeler, George R., 284 
Wheeler, William, 26 
White's Store and Hall. 20, 63, 

136, 281 
White, James, 58, 64, 139, 144, 

199 
White, Dr. Joseph, of Cherry 

Valley, 41, 119, 181 
Wilkins, James T, 283 
Williams, Col. A. D., 37, 56; 
his grave, 89, 90, 113, 114; 



sketch of, 118; his store, 
141; made a Colonel, 166, 
199; his home, 201; opens 
a road, 203; his store, 208, 
281 

Williams, Elizabeth, 118 

Williams, Israel, 118 

Williams, James, 143 

Williams, Thomas, 118 

Wilbur, Thomas, 99 

Wilmot, Daniel W., 68, 138 

Wilmot, Emeline, 206 

Wilmot, William, 68, 89, 138 

Winans, Walter, 101 

Winston, Wellington, 243 

Wolcott, George, 134 

Wolcott, Harry, 211 

Wolcott, Nathaniel, 211 

Wood, Charles, 121, 141 

Wood, Stephen. 95 

Woodruff, He_nry S., 89, 121, 
201 

Woodruff, Joel, 121 

Woodruff, John, 122 

Woodruff, L. Bennett, 58, 77; 
his grave, 89, 114; sketch 
of, 120, 141; his marriage, 
170, 200; his home, 201; 
anecdote of, 208 

Woodruff, Lloyd L., 121, 122, 
201 

Woodworth, Alvin, 105 

Woolsey, Commodore M. T, 
164, 195 

Wright, Henry, 250; in Cali- 
fornia, 271-272 

Wright, Johnson, 144, 200 

Wright, Roswell, his store, 19, 
72,112,113,118, 126, 129, 
141,272 

Wright, Watson & Co., 141 



322 



INDEX. 

Yale, Enos, 107 Yates's Ferrv, 47 

Yates, Arthur, 63 York, Charles, 282, 283, 284 



MM 



323 



[PUBLISHED IN APRIL I9OI. NOW IN ITS THIRD EDITION.] 

The Old New York Frontier, 

YTJ WARS WITH INDIANS AND TORIES. ITS MISSIONARY 
SCHOOLS. PIONEERS AND LAND TITLES, 1614-I800. 

By FRANCIS WHITING HALSEY. 



This volume, by the author of "The Pioneers of 
Unadilla Village," deals with that territory which 
for more than a hundred years was the frontier be- 
tween the white men and the Indians in New York 
State. The record has never before been printed in 
a book in its entirety from the first settlement. 
Even the Revolutionary part, embracing the Bor- 
der Wars, has not been dealt with in any regularly 
published history since Stone, Simms, Jay Gould 
and Campbell wrote their now very scarce volumes 
fifty and sixty years ago. 

Meanwhile, a large mass of new material has 
come to light in State publications, local histories 
and collections of manuscripts that seem not to 
have been accessible to any earlier writers. They 
shed floods of new light on an important subject 
and comprise about 160 large folio volumes. The 
author began his researches eleven years ago and 
completed "The Old New York Frontier" in the 
summer of 1900 after a personal examination of 
the Joseph Brant manuscripts in Wisconsin. 



The Border Wars were integral parts of British 
campaigns in America. They bore the same, if a 
less important, relation to the struggle for control 
of the Hudson Valley that Burgoyne's campaign 
and Arnold's treason bore. What made them more 
barbarous, was the unarmed and defenseless state 
of the settlements attacked. Before the Tory and 
Indian invasions came to an end, more than 12,000 
farms on this frontier had ceased to be cultivated, 
some hundreds of women had become widows and 
thousands of children orphans. 

The volume relates almost wholly to the head- 
waters of the Susquehanna from Otsego Lake to 
Old Oghwaga ( Windsor ) and to the valley of the 
upper Mohawk — a region to which Fenimore 
Cooper has given enduring interest as containing 
the home of himself and his father and the scenes 
of some of his most famous works of fiction. 

CONTENTS. 

[divided into 43 chapters.] 
INTRODUCTION: Why This History? 



PART I. PART 1 

3 Chapters.) 
Indians and Far Traders 



(In 3 Chapters.) ( In 5 Chapters.) 

Land Titles and Pioneers. 



1679-1774. 

PART II. PART IV. 

(In 7 Chapters.) (In 5 Chapters) 

Missionaries and the French The Border Wars Begun. 
War 1650-1774 1776-1777. 



PART V. 

(In 5 Chapters.) 

Overthrow of the Frontier. 

1 777-1778. 

PART VI. 

(In 4 Chapters.) 

The Sullivan Expedition. 

1779. 



PART VII. 

(In 5 Chapters ) 

Last Years of the War. 

1780-1783. 

PART VIII. 

(In 8 Chapters.) 

The Restoration of the Frontier 

1782-T800. 



FOURTEEN FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 
Portrait of Joseph Brant 
Council Rock, Otsego Lake 



Portrait of Col. Marinus 
Willett 



Portrait of Sir Wm. Johnson 
Fort Oswego 

Portraits of Four Eminent 

New York Indians 
Monument at Oriskany 
Portrait of Fenimore Cooper 
Monument at Cherry Valley 



The Susquehanna at Unadilla 

Village 
Portrait of Gen. James Clinton 
An Iroquois Fort in Central 

New York 
Otsego Hall, Cooperstown 
Confluence of the Susquehan- 
na and Unadilla Rivers 



TWO MAPS. 

The Frontier of New York in the Revolution. 

Early Land Patents on the Frontier, with dates and owners' 

names. 

Charles Scribner's Sons, - Publishers 

153-157 Fifth Avenue, New York. 

8vo, $2.50 NET. 



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